Transcriber’s Note: If you’re following these issues in order, we jump straight from No. 25 (October 1921) to this No. 27 (November 1921). Subsequent issues continue the numbering from here. No. 26 doesn’t seem to exist at all.

Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, Vol. III. No. 27, November, 1921

[1]

Captain Billy’s
Whiz Bang

America’s Magazine of
Wit, Humor and
Filosophy

NOVEMBER, 1921 Vol. III. No. 27

Published Monthly
W. H. Fawcett, Rural Route No. 2
at Robbinsdale, Minnesota

Entered as second-class matter May, 1, 1920, at the postoffice at Robbinsdale, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879.

Price 25 cents $2.50 per year

Contents of this magazine are copyrighted. Republication of any part permitted when properly credited to Capt. Billy’s Whiz Bang.

[2]

“We have room for but one soul loyalty and that is loyalty to the American people.”—Theodore Roosevelt.

Copyright 1921
By W. H. Fawcett

Edited by a Spanish and World War Veteran and dedicated to the fighting forces of the United States

[3]

Ye Editor is now touring these great and glorious United States in quest of the Famed Pedigreed Bull, and in this issue we are intending to give a wider variety as a result of our visits to the East, South and the golden West.

We had the pleasure of spending an afternoon at the New York studio as a personal guest of D. W. Griffith, in addition to peeping behind Broadway’s scenes, and at this writing we are “courting Satan” in the domain of Fatty Arbuckle et al., California’s movie camps.

If we seem to carry too much gossip in this issue from Hollywood and Los Angeles, please pardon us. We’ll be leaving soon for the deer hunting grounds in Minnesota, but in the meantime, of course, we will have to go to San Francisco, “The City of Health, Wealth and Beauty,” for first-hand information on Movieland’s latest and biggest sensation!

Well, Kind Readers, I woke up the other morning with a grouch and the reason for it is just this: Gus, the hired man, jumped his job and I had to do the morning chores myself. At that moment I could waft forth onto the silvery air the sweetest scent you ever scented. To make matters all the worse, one of the cows kicked over the milk pail when I was half through the job. She also added insult to injury by swishing her mucky old tail in my face.

But to get back to Gus. Really, I don’t think [4] he played exactly fair. After he had enjoyed several aeroplane rides and a wonderful trip to New York and Atlantic City, he became obsessed with the idea that the sun rose and set in his face—that it was his bounden duty to hang up the moon and take down the sun each evening. Really, Fellow Soaks, I couldn’t get him even to feed the pet monkey which I gave him as a present for assumed faithfulness. Previously I had a confidential talk with him regarding a boat which was badly in need of a coat of white lead and tar. He became quite haughty at the idea that I should expect him to act as Indian guide and hired man at the same time, so he threw his hands in the air and yelled: “I’m through.” And I guess he is through, for the last time I saw him that morning he was spinning away to Minneapolis.

Right at this point, I must get somewhat confidential. My opinion of Gus is that he was lonesome for Robbinsdale—and its nearby suburb, Minneapolis. Breezy Point at Pequot, Minnesota, is thoroughly dry on account of its location in the Indian territory. When Gus is thirsty, he’s good and thirsty and it is my honest belief that some day in the future he’ll come back to the old homestead again.

Well, Gus, if you ever read these lines, Good Luck to you and God bless you—though I do feel like saying Gosh Darn you instead.

[5]

Every now and then it falls my lot to awaken with deep emotions of remorse. When the harvest of a misspent night has been reaped and garnered, the “morning after” invariably finds me with a sort of null and void feeling. Here I am in the old red barn of the Whiz Bang farm endeavoring to gather some fertile copy for the November issue. My poor, fatigued brain refuses to move to action. It is quite comparable to the brain of a univalve mollusk. I can find but one palliative for my purely personal woes and that is the twentieth amendment.

Oh, for the days of Omar Khayyam. His immortal Rubaiyat is a masterpiece for the “rounder.” Had he lived in this modern generation a different title would have graced his writings. We would probably be reading a booklet entitled “The Philosophy of An Old Sport,” or probably that short and sweet title, “Wine, Women and Song.” Whenever I feel like a fatuous fathead, a certain degree of relief always can be gained in perusing Omar’s bull. And so today, while I have a look of languor like a homesick bum, I am repeating herewith some of his verses which may find an appeal to “The old sport who sat in the grand stand chair.” Here they are:

[7]

“It won’t be long now,” insisted my new Jewish farm hand, Ikey, as he grabbed the axe this morning to cut the daily supply of wood.

We surely are getting lots of tourists in Minnesota this year. Just at the close of the hunting season we saw a pennant on the back of a Ford of the vintage of 1904 or 1905 which read “Clymer, Pa.”

Fishing season was brought to an eventful close at my summer resort, Breezy Point Lodge, in the Indian country of Northern Minnesota this month and now all we have to do is sit around all winter and recount experiences with the hook and line.

The day the season closed four of us boarded a raft and put out into Big Pelican Lake for a day’s angling. I had a very strong line and towards the close of the day was rewarded with a big bite from a Great Northern pike. The pike nearly ran away with the line, but the four of us held on and Mr. Fish pulled us almost to shore. When we reached shallow water we grabbed the line and made a half hitch around a tree while one of the party pumped the fish full of shotgun pellets. It was then we discovered that the fish had swallowed a young fawn and that the fawn, after being swallowed, kicked its legs through the belly of the fish, and thus the fish, when it reached [8] shallow water, had been able to walk almost to shore. What was that you said? Yes, sure, make it Bourb’n!

This is a plea for fair play. Fatty Arbuckle at this writing hasn’t been convicted of any crime. Testimony by one of the prosecuting witnesses is claimed by the defense as showing Miss Rappe voluntarily entering what later proved to be her death chamber. We are not taking that as evidence to remove guilt or do we claim that it excuses Fatty for his alleged actions.

The “exposure” of Fatty’s past actions by daily newspapers ought not to be news to regular Whiz Bang readers. For more than a year we have “kidded” Fatty, in our “movie pages,” for his famous “pajama parties,” and dedicated the cover of our August, 1920, issue to Fatty’s “heart-breaking” playfulness in Hollywood.

A recent report to the Whiz Bang was to the effect that Mr. Arbuckle bought the Randolph Miner home on West Adams Street, Los Angeles, because it was supposed to hold a thirty thousand dollar cellar.

We are reminded, by an enthusiastic reader, of the old story of the man who walked into a Halstead Street saloon in Chicago and ordered Sherry and Egg.

[9]

“Bartender, if your Sherry was as old as your egg and your egg was as young as your Sherry, this would be a dang good drink.”

Deacon Miller, my long-haired neighbor, doesn’t approve of the aeroplane which I purchased recently any more than he does of my Whiz Bang. When our hired man told the Deacon about my purchase of the plane, old Miller grunted and snorted and said he wouldn’t own any fool thing that would fly and not lay any eggs.

We have it from the Seattle Post Intelligencer that the Justamere farm at Mount Vernon, Washington, is the home of Colony Zarilda Cornucopia, the only 33,000-pound pedigreed bull in the state. I’d hate to be the hired man that had to throw this bull every day.

My, my, my, what an agitation we have started over the definition of a “Whiffenpoof.” A Kansas reader avers that everybody is wrong so far; that a “Whiffenpoof” is a bird that eats red pepper and has to fly backwards to keep his tail from catching on fire.

Some young men seem to imagine that they are following the fashions when they are on the trail of a pretty girl.

[10]

My new hired man, Pete, hangs around the hog pen so much that he apparently has learned most of his manners from the animals. The other night we went to supper at neighbor Nelson’s place and our hired man tried to make a hit with Tillie, old man Nelson’s daughter. A few days later I asked Tillie how she liked Pete.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, “At supper he acted like a pig and after supper he was such a bore.”

So I guess that ends Pete’s love affair so far as Tillie is concerned.

Well, boys, in conclusion I wish to cheer you up with the consolation that the Bible gives to the thirsty: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

Those Inquisitive Aussies

An Australian editor tells this story—

An old lady, at the conclusion of the war, was paying a visit to Madame Jarley’s Wax Works. Carefully sizing up a group of figures representing various ancient queens, including Queen Elizabeth and Mary Queen of Scots, she asked an attendant if they wore any underwear under this gorgeous raiment. The attendant replied:

“No, ma’am, they don’t wear any, but the public of course thinks they do. The only visitors we’ve ’ad as knows they don’t are some Australian soldiers.”

[11]

Hot Tamales

Two jolly traveling men viewed with unmingled pleasure the charms of a beautiful maiden who sat opposite them in the palatial Twentieth Century Limited. To their surprise and further happiness, the fair charmer suddenly removed her stockings, turned them inside out and replaced them, being careful to roll them stylishly to half-hose length. The drummers were quite worried as to why she went through this performance. Finally one of them screwed up courage enough to ask her point blank. Here’s her pert reply:

“Oh, my legs were hot and I just turned the hose on them.”

An Eye Opener

She was sweet seventeen and just emancipated from the thraldom of school, but already she had her “best boy,” who on some special occasion gave her a gold watch.

Some days later he inquired if she had told her friends of his little gift.

“Oh, yes,” she said “all of them.”

“Did you say who gave it to you?”

“Of course not,” replied the artless maiden. “We always gave one kiss for each chocolate at school. But for a gold watch! Well, I thought it best to say mamma gave it to me.”

Oh, scissors, let’s cut up.

[12]

Heard On the Toonerville

It was pitch dark along the road and had anybody been listening in the shrubbery they would have heard the voice of a woman remonstrating with a man. “I won’t,” exclaimed the woman, “I think you are a brute.”

“You’ll either do what I say or get out and walk home,” roared the deep voice of the man.

“All right, I’ll walk,” said the woman, “but wait till I tell my husband. I paid my fare and you rang it up just before we left the city limits,” and she indignantly left the street car.

Ring On, Oh Bells

Bright’s wife prided herself on being resourceful and after waiting in another room while her husband talked for half an hour with a gentleman in the parlor she turned the alarm clock so it rang a second and then called, “John, you are wanted on the phone.” The caller said good-bye and John came back to his wife with an amused smile. “Well, that’s one way to get rid of them,” said friend wife. “What did he want?” “Oh, nothing,” replied her husband, “he was just a solicitor trying to get me to have a telephone put in.”

For Freedom

Convict—“I’m here for having five wives.”

Visitor—“How are you enjoying your liberty?”

[13]

Dear Captain Billy —Where can I find a man like Fatty Arbuckle?— Marie De Wildmen.

We have referred your inquiry to Pedro.

Dear Captain Billy —What makes the wild cat wild?— Larry Cranker.

Turpentine.

Dear Captain Billy —What is a “soubrette?”— Ivegon Buggs.

A singer that gets $50 a week and sends $100 home to mother.

Dear Captain Bill —How long does the three-foot kiss in the movies last?— Oscar Latory.

Long enough to warp the hands on an asbestos alarm clock.

Dear Skipper —If you were a cowpuncher alone in a big city and without a pony, saddle, or lariat, and desired to corral a calf, what would you do?— Scare D. Catt.

“Getting Gertie’s Garter” is one of the biggest hits of the season.

[14]

Captain Billy —Why is it that the motion picture producers must give their picture such blatant title as “Once to Every Woman,” “Why Change Your Wife?”, etc. Stage plays don’t have to have “alluring” names to be successful.— Legit.

Quite right, Legit. The “movies” ought to tone down their titles so as to make them drab and commonplace and on a par with such stage successes, as “Mary’s Ankle,” “Up in Mabel’s Room,” “Twin Beds,” and the recent Broadway hit, “Getting Gertie’s Garter.” The last must have been some job.

Dear Captain Billy —What is a golf hazard and what does ex-President Taft playing golf remind you of?— Loon Attic.

A golf hazard is getting stung by a bee in a rough. Don’t know what Taft playing golf reminds of unless it’s a hippopotamus playing tiddlywinks.

Dear Billy —What is the best way to tell a gentleman?— Root T. Toot.

The best way is to watch how he wears his evening clothes—or pajamas. The first is preferable for single folk.

Dear Cap —What is meant by the stuff dreams are made of?— Near Beer.

Paint, powder, padding and false hair.

[15]

Dear Captain Fawcett —Can you give me a recipe for a dish known as Strawberry Surprise?— Miss Conny Sewer.

Pick the bones out of a quart of strawberries. Add two pounds of borrowed sugar. Throw in a quart of oyster shells and three raisins. If it is good that’s the surprise.

Dear Bill —What are the best furs for summer wear?— Parry Moore.

Deerskin, bearskin and moleskin probably would suit your tastes. Moleskin is very popular nowadays. No matter where the mole is the skin can be worn to show it.

Dear Cap —Which animal is the better fighter—dog or badger?— B. D. Chamber.

It depends on how strong the badger is. In the usual badger fight, too, much depends on the proficiency shown in the art of releasing the badger.

Dear Whiz Bang —What bird is known as the bird of peace?— Passy Fist.

The chicken.

Captain Breezy Bill —Kindly give me your Whiz Bang definition of the phrase “Matrimonial Progress.”— Whipper Will.

Adhering strictly to Queens-Gooseberry rules, I cheerfully submit the following: “Maid One; Maid Won; Made One.”

[16]

Dear Billy —Where do women’s styles start?— Miss Wobb L. Walke.

Styles start in Paris but we finish ’em here.

Dear Whiz Bang —Can you tell me if it is true that some animals use their tails as signals?— Dr. Walloper.

Yes, indeed—here in Robbinsdale and elsewhere. The South American puma is said to agitate its tail-tip to entice grazing, curious creatures. The white underneath part of several varieties of deer are said to be used as a guide for other members of the herd. The horse uses his tail as a sun shade for the driver. Probably there are other animals that use their tails, but as we have never taken our post-graduate degree in tail technology, this meager answer will have to suffice for the present.

Dear Captain Billy —Would you please define “Platonic Love?”— Plute O. Fizz.

“Platonic Love” means that you can kiss her all you want and forget she is a woman. But there ain’t no such animal.

Dear Captain Billy —Is it true that Fatty Arbuckle is to plead “insanity”?— Aunty I. Over.

We wouldn’t be surprised. Fatty has been acting rather funny for several months.

[17]

We wonder how Mary Miles Minter likes the idea of the battleship “New Mexico” being sent up to Puget Sound Navy Yard to have her bottom scraped. It is said the “New Mexico” carried away a handsome young officer “in the middle of a reel.”

Dorothy Dalton has been seen dancing often of late at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles with her millionaire “angel,” Godsell, of the Goldwyn Film Company.

Bebe Daniels and Jack Dempsey, the pugilist, as the press agents of the film companies may have told you, have been seen chattering in the jungle at the Ambassador Cocoanut Grove.

Wanda Hawley has been vacationing at Catalina. Her hair has lately been bobbed and has lost its former brownishness, for it is now corn-tassel white. Wanda occupied a table in the center of the huge dining room of the St. Catherine Hotel [18] and often dined with a tanned, slender, and quiet young man. Star and escort looked decidedly bored.

Thompson Buchanan, Lasky scenario chieftain, is encouraging Helene Chadwick in her film career.

Kathleen Clifford, clad in sports clothes and sandals, steps nights with a handsome dark stranger.

Herbert Rawlinson, with a couple of minor actor friends in tow, spent a month at Catalina. Roberta Arnold, Herbert’s wife, seemed to be “somewhere on location” for she was not in those parts. The adoration of some hundreds of grammar school girls seemed centered on handsome Herb and his marvelous physique.

Marshall Neilan’s “all in a minute” scenario writer, Lucita Squire, is still in the game.

We know nothing about the scenario business but it is reported from the camps that Gouverneur Morris has discovered one of those “all in a minute” scenario writers in Ruth Wightman, and that she is now adapting his stories for the screen.

[19]

May McAvoy and Eddie Sutherland are stepping about together.

Clara Kimball Young is playing the navy.

The same day Charley Chaplin was being carried on the shoulders of his admirers in London, that other world’s famous film comedian, “Fatty” Arbuckle, was being shouldered along to jail by policemen for his connection with the death of a motion picture actress in a San Francisco hotel.

Jackie Saunders and Hubby Horkheimer haven’t been bathing at Long Beach of late. Some of the Iowans who inhabit the “metropolis” become “Infant terribles” when the name Horkheimer is mentioned.

Many of them are putting up their noses and saying, “I told you so!” Now, due to the publicity which centers around the mixup of Mr. and Mrs. Horkheimer, all because a few years ago the Horkheimer retinue of directors and players, in pursuing film art at the Balboa Studios at Long Beach, cavorted too fast and furious to suit the simple minded and puritanical Iowans, and Iowa sniffed long and loud and shrugged shoulders when the Horkheimer Company withdrew from that scene of piety.

Ho, hum!

[20]

Apropos of the recent reports of a Geraldine Farrar and Lou Tellegen matrimonial “tangle,” Whiz Bang’s astute investigators have heard some interesting gossip among the imported French actors of Hollywood’s colony.

They report a story, which went the rounds in Paris just before Mr. Tellegen’s marriage to the great prima donna, to the effect that Lou was much infatuated at one time with an actress of the French capital, but that this “Love” was then on the struggling rung of the ladder of fame and with her name yet to make.

Of late our Frenchie friends are saying this actress has attained fame and fortune in Paris, which brings up the speculation as to the possibilities of Lou’s wayward thoughts returning to the scene of early days. Then again all this talk may be plain bull of the press agent variety to advertise Tellegen’s new play “Don Juan,” which soon will open in New York.

After the failure of Lou’s play, “Blind Youth,” on the stage to startle the public, he announced his intentions of devoting talents to the cinema art. Subsequently he played and directed at the Lasky and Goldwyn lots, but the Pickfords and Chaplins continued to hold a monopoly on the “silent applause.” Now Lou is returning to his former art before the footlights, and we wish him much luck. Lou is a good actor as everybody knows, but we can’t [21] all be on top, as our friend Owen Moore might remark.

Everyone who has had any close association with the premier song bird, Geraldine, loves her. When she lived in Hollywood her sweet strains were heard as early as five and six o’clock in the morning. Often she was up at daybreak to practice for a concert tour. Frequently she arrived at the studio before eight o’clock and played all day and in the evening entertained friends with opera selections. In spite of the very busy life she led, Mrs. Tellegen (Geraldine Farrar) always was good natured and radiant with enthusiasm, and she has been placed among America’s most remarkable women. Geraldine has never been known to “high-tone” studio menials, and it is said that Geraldine is of a forgiving nature for any flirting by Lou when they are apart, but that she insisted on Tellegen keeping to the home fireside when they were lucky enough to be in the same city. There is much speculation as to the final outcome of the Tellegen and Farrar ventures.

The Agony Column

(From London Winning Post.)

Author, command of scathing English, would write memoirs for any Lady or Gentleman in society wishing to pay off old scores.

The old-fashioned mother who used to be a clinging vine now has a daughter who has no more clinging qualities than a sapling.

[22]

Truth at Last

During the week of the Fair there occurred an incident which is worth recording. A big six-foot bully was shooting off his mouth in the rotunda of a hotel, evidently having had a snifter or two, announcing that he could lick anybody in sight. A quiet little man came from a seat in the corner, and, walking straight up to the giant, called him a four-flusher. The bully thereupon handed the little man a biff on the jaw, a smash between the eyes and lifted him two feet off the floor with an uppercut. The little man was carried upstairs and put to bed.

(We apologize for the unhappy ending of this story, realizing that it should have been the other way about. But truth must prevail in these columns at all costs.)—Bob Edwards’ Book.

This Ain’t So Good

“Wait a minute, lady,” said the garage attendant. “You owe us a dollar and a half—your battery was fixed. Pay me please.”

“Indeed,” snorted the fair driver, “my husband told me to have it charged!”

“The doctor says you may have a little whisky. He says the dose will be—”

“Never mind what he says. I know all about the dose.”

[23]

Revamped Neckery

Cheer Up!

“Hurry Now!”

The Best Firm

By Sherwood.

[24]

BY REV. “GOLIGHTLY” MORRILL

Pastor of People’s Church, Minneapolis, Minn.

If you want to take a course of study in the liberal sciences of gayety and godlessness, go to New Orleans, the Crescent City of climate, Creole, carnival, cotton, conventions, cane-sugar, cafes and cemeteries. Though there are more than thirty grave-yards, it is not a dead town. I found week-day races and prize fights on Sunday, as well as other religious services. It has been called the great winter resort of the United States, and there are enough “resorts” by day and night for all the good and bad who care to patronize them.

Pleasure is the big word in the dictionary of New Orleans life. Her morals, as well as her markets, are French. She is the commercial gateway to the Panama Canal. Her citizens have improved the city sewage and water supply, paved the streets, erected fine hotels and public buildings, and enlarged her port facilities. If she mends her ways as much morally, she will be a safe place for pious as well as political and carnival celebrations.

One night after I had taken in three dozen oysters and washed them down with French [25] drip coffee, I took in a night-court where people of black skin were sentenced for cracking and breaking some of the laws; a gambling-hell where money was stacked up and pulled down on the turn of a card; a cafe and cabaret where the colored man was outshining his white brother elsewhere; and then strolled through a shady district of all shades of color and character. The denizens of the vice dens started a street fight. They threw stones and shoes which I dodged, and hurled hard, vile names which deeply impressed me. Girls, not cursed with an incorruptible chastity, in tempting dishabille, tripped along the street and ogled me. The doors of some of these places of contraband amusement were wide open to welcome the visitor, while others were shut and bore a placard with some such reassuring information that “MABEL IS ENGAGED—CALL LATER.” During the war this Broadway to Baal, Avenue to Avernus, Hell’s Highway, and Promenade to Perdition was temporarily closed for moral repairs and sanitary improvements. Degradation slope was graded, and a curb set up for evil-doers. But far be it from me to injure the reputation of New Orleans for wantonness and frivolity. The fact that these places were officially closed for a while need not deter those who journey here today for these simple pleasures, and from easily finding them. No war order can change the leopard spots of the city. The Epicurean motto, “Let us eat, drink and be merry,” [26] prevails according to time-honored custom. I attended a theatre which offered a bill that would not be tolerated in any other city of the United States. Jokes and clothes were “pulled off” in a way to make the blase blush.

The Crescent City is cosmopolitan and has all the races, but the most flourishing is the horse-race. Betting was the main thing. The horses were fast, but the women at the track were faster. A petite Parisian petticoat invited me to take her out here every day to bet on the races—but I thought I better not. During the Mardi Gras Waterloo’s “revelry by night” was outdone. Streets were a riot of rogues and rampant ribaldry a mad pageant of music, masks and merriment, a mob of men and maidens. Whatever the parade seemed to be outside, it was plain the Devil’s spirit was inside. If one is afflicted with naughty propensities, this is a fine place to get rid of them. I attended a Bal Masque. The manager lamented the passing of the good old times when drinks were allowed to be sold and dancers got stewed, yet said his real estate ventures in maisons de joie were flourishing. The dancers, jumping to the accompaniment of the jazz, acted no more like dancers than the blare, blow and crash of the jazz seemed like music. They jerked about like automatons and marionettes, “hesitated” like victims of locomotor-ataxia, hopped like grasshoppers, and moved with a stop, spring and shuffle, a [27] squirm, a swerve, a swirl, a slide and a slip. It was enough to make Terpsichore sick. The players made hard work of it and the dancers should have received good wages for such strenuous labor, for it was simply a dance “haul.”

In New Orleans, earthly gastronomy and not heavenly astronomy is the science most studied in its “courses.” Many are the toothsome taverns in this Lotus-eating town. I remember one time-eaten cafe where there was a di-“stink”-tive garlic atmosphere, and where the soup was seasoned by falling plaster. Over the tattered table-cloth, evidently changed for every hundredth guest, French drip coffee had dripped. Antique china and silver service had served their day and long since should have decorated the windows of a curio shop. It was old with cracks, nicks and dents. What jokes were cracked over them? What sweet stories had the ears of the sugar-bowl listened to? With what wide astonishment had the mouth of the pitcher gasped at off-color stories? What hands had caressed the neck of vinegar and oil bottle? What cutting remarks and thrusts the knives and forks suggested! What spooning of callow couples the spoons had witnessed! The table was superannuated, shaky on its pins, and subject to ague-fits, while the chairs had felt so many rounds of pleasure that they were nearly all in with broken backs, twisted feet and elliptical legs. The old lamps had looked [28] down on eyes of beauty whose light had been shut out by death, and the weather-stained walls echoed to steps that led down to the grave.

Passing through the French Market, with its dingy stalls, dogs, dirt, cobwebs, spiders and poverty, I came to the old Absinthe House, the refuge rendezvous of the picturesque Bordeaux blacksmith, pirate, smuggler and slave-trader, Jean Lafitte, the bold, bad buccaneer who loved beauty, booze, and blood, and had barrels of money to spend for them. Standing at the little old marble bar, I drank a befitting toast to his memory in absinthe. “Look not upon the absinthe when it is green,” yet I tasted it here and in Paris, though never sufficiently to get the full benefit of excitation, hallucination, terrifying dreams, delirium and idiocy. I left these spirits to call on those of the Haunted House nearby where of yore colored slaves were found mutilated, held in sharp, spiked iron bands, and chained to the wall.

The old time Southerners are gone. They did not have five-reel thriller movies, horse races, prize fights and carnivals, but they did have some innocent pastimes with which their simple natures were satisfied—pleasures that beguiled the worn and weary hours. Public executions and hangings were quite the rage then; pirates were hung on the square for decoration; the heads of negroes were stuck on spikes at the city gates. At the Calabozo there [29] were whipping posts and hot irons with which the fleur de lis was burned on culprit’s breaking some of the laws; a gambling-hell where money was staked up and pulled down shoulders. The only hangings I saw were of idlers hanging around the corners. Then the old Plaza was the center of social and commercial life, military fete and the fate of criminals who were shot, nailed alive in their coffins, or slowly sawed in half. The attractions were sometimes varied by hanging women on the gallows and breaking men on the wheel.

In those days there were no Sunday jazz bands or vaudeville circuits, but in Congo Square in the open air there were dancing carnivals with half-naked girls, and real Voodoo dancers at Ponchartrain, of the old tom-tom fiddle and gourd drum variety, who danced themselves crazy and fell into a frothy fit.

What modern social balls can compare with the Indian balls where saffron sirens with sweet look and voice led the dance through love’s labyrinth of jealousy! Now there is horse racing and private and polite gambling—then there was wide open faro and roulette, and later the Louisiana lottery.

Women did not possess the face and figure characteristic of modern New Orleans belles, but there society was very select, in fact, they were “selected” from hospitals and correction homes. Later there came a shipment of “casket [30] girls,” poor girls sent over from Paris by the King as wives. They brought their trousseau in a chest of clothes. This seems very primitive to us now, yet today men pick wives no better than these, and some they choose do not wear clothes enough for a shroud in the coffin.

The city was once a sink or swamp filled with deported galley-slaves, trappers, miners, gold hunters and soldiers whose profession was dice, dueling and idleness. Today it is the big, busy, commercial city of the South. Once there was fever, filth and filibusters, but these things are no longer in fashion. New Orleans now buys white rice, cotton and sugar—in early days she bought black slaves from San Domingo and Guinea.

Charles Lamb liked old things—he would have enjoyed the old part of town with its bizarre balconies, mountain-peaked roofs, hill-shaped sheds, begrimed, battered stairways, open flowery courts, shady portieres, quaint doorways, and ramshackle, rickety rows of houses marshalled on both sides of the streets like awkward squads of soldiers. In the quiet streets one looks in doorways where the inhabitants, listless lazy lovers of pleasure, are dozing away Life’s afternoon. Here you find the beautiful and bewitching Creoles, coquettish damsels whose baby years were cuddled and cradled in sentimental songs such as “I love you as a little pig loves the mud.”

The pleasure-seeker is “stuck” on New [31] Orleans with its lasses, molasses, lassitude and laissez-faire morals.

Thash Our Stashon

The conductor and a brakeman on a Montana railroad differ as to the proper pronunciation of the name Eurelia. Passengers are often startled upon arrival at the station to hear the conductor yell, “You’re a liar, you’re a liar.” Then from the brakeman at the other end comes the cry, “You really are, you really are.”

Lawn Mower Missionaries

In the South Sea Islands women are arrayed in grass aprons, but after while the missionaries will invade their peaceful haunts and they won’t wear much but the garb of civilization.

No Indian to Guide Her

Following the example of Clara Hamon, Mrs. Stillman, of divorce fame, is being offered a starring contract in the movies. How about a nice feature film such as “No Indian to Guide Her?”

Why, of Course Not

“Bullet Strikes Girl’s Knee Without Puncturing Skirt—Police Baffled,” says a headline in the Philadelphia Record. The police are so stupid!—Grand Rapids Press.

[32]

Tiajuana is a small town in Mexico just across the border from San Diego. It is the Havana of the west coast. The other day a theatre had just opened up to show the films of the Carpentier-Dempsey fight when the building caught fire and burned film and all. It was a tough day for the movies also in San Diego, for the “cops” at a nearby beach resort chose the day for raiding a playhouse that was screening a South American film called “Adam and Eve.”

According to the police there was an undue exposure of the feminine anatomy in the case of Eve. Mebbe so! We have not had the pleasure of seeing this tid-bit. But, it must have been some exposure if it had anything on the Aphrodite of the galleries and the halls of sculpture that are accepted as the product of “Art” and held immune from the incongruous draperies of Gothic prudery.

On our bathing beaches, too, everything goes on and off, and more than mere legs is visible [33] to the naked eye unashamed. Why then, is the feminine form divine the most indecent product of the Creator’s handiwork? We have asked Gus and he says that all the girls of his acquaintance are bow-legged. That lets Gus out of the symposium. Perhaps some of the prude morality mongers can enlighten a poor, hard-working farmer from Robbinsdale.

Feminine modesty may be only shoe-high and roll-top stockings an incitement to masculine pruriency—but, thank heaven, most of us are not fashioned that way. The censorial Puritan may blush like an over-ripe tomato at the complete revelation of the feminine knee-joint.

However, no masculine connoisseur is going to do an emotional handspring over such a trivial, especially when it is common observation that three-quarters of the lower quarters, and other quarters that one sees parading down Main street nowadays, are too fat or too skinny or too gnarled to raise much of a ripple on a regular guy’s masculinity.

Immodesty is a relative term and a silk stocking, properly stocked, is not our idea of indecency. Therefore, we don’t incline to the grannies’ view that the bare leg on stage or screen is immodest for the very reason that the fat leg and the skinny leg and the bow-legged leg don’t get there. Or, at least, they don’t stay there long.

[34]

Why does a man, having spent his years from the time of puberty to young manhood in an orgy of flagrant living and self-indulgence, demand of the honored girl whom he makes his wife that she be of virginal purity? And why in the name of all that is civilized should he adhere to the idea that no matter how degenerate he becomes, his wife should bring to him an unimpeachable chastity?

Our average young wife seeker, following the action of Diogenes, conducts a vigilant search and after a time he finds the girl who is his conception of the perfect feminine and marries this most fortunate young lady. Then in the course of events he discovers or thinks he discovers a shadow in his wife’s early career, a shadow occurring before he illuminated with his presence the horizon of her life.

In a great display of righteous indignation he rises upon his hind legs, lays back his ears and in a loud voice fairly quivering with holy wrath and outraged decency, he verbally and sometimes physically flays his wife.

And then to secure balm for his wounded spirit he hies himself with all possible haste to the divorce courts, where he assures the world that he is a worthy young man of impeccable character; that he, a paragon of virtue, has been tricked into a marriage with a creature of the streets and that he is ineradicably besmirched. Is he not a member in high [35] standing of the Y.M.C.A. and the B.Y.P.U. and therefore blameless?

After he has succeeded in establishing his claim to godliness through the process of dragging his wife’s name through the mire of the courts he feels the need of consolation; so cranking his trusty automobile, he flivvers down some shady avenue, inviting passing flappers to share the honor of his society and the pleasure of his car.

Puritanically speaking, such a standard of morality was considered quite the proper thing but Puritanism flourished during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which time incidentally, is far removed from the present.

Far be it from us to harp too much on styles. We believe if a girl has shapely limbs and a sparkling pair of eyes she has as much right to show one as the other and as an anonymous writer in a Minneapolis newspaper says, “There is no such thing as immodest dress—it is all in the mind.”

Samuel Butler says: “Even Euclid had to assume something before he could prove anything. Truly we live by faith.” Thus it can be said that it is all in the mind. But I do submit that what a thing is to anyone, lies in his reaction or response to it not in the thing itself. If in a painting, a statue or a shapely pair of legs beneath a short skirt, one person sees only the beauty, an esthetic reaction to [36] grace, perfect proportion or symmetry, while another “sees red.” Where lies the cause? The object viewed is the same. Therefore, as someone so aptly put it, “it is all in the eyes of the beholder.”

If short skirts and low necks arouse sex instincts, why howl about it? Rather be happy in the knowledge that one is normal, for the sex instinct is a natural one. When sex desire stops, the physical manifestations of life will cease. Those thoughts may require self-control, but since that element is a necessary concomitant to civilized society, the exercise of it will be beneficial. The trend of human progress, while almost imperceptible, appears to be toward the ideal in human relations and away from the cocoanut throwing hit-her-on-the-head-with-a-club status, and if some men can’t withstand the sight of bare knees they are insufficiently advanced in the scale of civilization.

Which brings us to a quotation by Stevenson, that all reformers and custodians of the neighbors’ morals would do well to heed. It is: “There is an idea abroad among moral people that they should make their neighbors good. One person I have to make good—myself. But my duty to my neighbor is much more nearly expressed by saying that I have to make him happy if I may.” Live and let live.

[37]

The December Smokehouse Poetry section of the Whiz Bang will feature “Ten Years On the Islands” by an anonymous writer, and the old masterpiece “The Spirit of Mortal,” and don’t forget, folk, that the Winter Annual of Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang, which is now on sale, contains the greatest collection of lively poetry ever published in a single book.

Down In the Lehigh Valley

Who Wrote This Crazy Thing?

[39]

Your Letter, Lady, Came Too Late

The following beautiful and touching lines were written during the Civil War by an officer of the Confederate army, at the time a prisoner on Johnson Island. A young Georgian, when the war broke out, was engaged to be married to the most beautiful and brilliant belle of Savannah, but died in captivity. While he lay dead, a letter came from this young lady to her late lover. It was a cruel, cold, heartless letter, altogether different in tone and in manner from any she ever had written to him. She spoke of brilliant balls she had lately dealt with, unconcealed rapture upon the innumerable perfections of a certain colonel of General Wheeler’s staff—of his manly form, his exquisite dancing, his marvelous conversational powers—closing with these chilling words: “Respectfully, Virginia.” Hitherto she had ended her letters with: “Your own devoted and faithful Virginia.” This letter was received at the prison a few hours after the death of him to whom it was addressed, and replied to by his comrade as follows:

Bein’ Human

By Bill Stinger.

[42]

God’s Richest Blessing

What Every Girl Thinks

If

[43]

Doug and Mary and Charley almost made Broadway forget to curse the landlords.

The wildest crowd I have seen in New York since Armistice Day was the gang that jammed into Forty-second Street the day that Fairbanks’ movie, “The Musketeers,” opened. Taxi cabs had to stop a block away and let the passengers fight their way into the theatre if they could.

I saw two girls shove Jack Dempsey out of the way to get a look at Doug and his wife. They just dug their little elbows into the illustrious ribs of the Champ, and rough housed him to one side out of their line of vision. I guess the Fairbanks family can consider this to be about the summit of human fame. I once saw a big crowd run away from a reception to the President of the United States, leaving that august personage talking to the empty air in order to see a heavy weight champion; but I never imagined that anything could take a crowd away from a champ. Compared to Doug and Mary as rival attractions, Dempsey was nothing but a broad back that was difficult to see around.

[44]

I’m telling you the truth, children. The day that Doug and Mary went to Boston, the crowds lined the railroad track at every station as though it were the Royal Mogul passing by.

Charley Chaplin didn’t register very heavily—except in the newspapers. The truth is painful, but must be told. Charles was lost in the shuffle. It wasn’t “his stuff” as the newspaper men say.

The night the show opened, Douglas, finding it hard to make a way through the crowd, picked Mary Pickford up on his shoulder and bucked his way through like a football half back. Charley couldn’t very well pick up Jack Dempsey on his shoulder so he played second fiddle.

I don’t know what’s the matter with Charley. His divorce suit must have been a shattering experience. His hair is growing gray around the edges, and his nerves seem on the raw edge. One day he was being interviewed by a gang of reporters in his suite at his New York hotel, and nearly chewed off the head of one of the newspaper men who asked him with what American he compared Lenin, the Bolshevist.

Without warning, Charles tore into the reporter and handed him a cutting rebuke for his stupidity. He talked scornfully about “you Americans”—which is poor stuff for Charley.

To tell the truth, I thought he was going to cry. And I guess he wasn’t far from it. Charley told me afterward that his nerves are [45] in such a condition that he weeps at the slightest excuse.

He should have taken a lesson from his former bride, Mildred Harris.

One of the actors told me about the weeps of the former Mrs. Chaplin. Not long ago she was working in a picture under one of the De Milles. Finding her exasperating, the director lost his temper and fairly lashed her with his tongue. Through the tirade, Miss Harris calmly kept on “making up.” While he was generally going over her sins of omission and commission, she was carefully penciling her eyebrows, looking sidewise into the mirror, the way they do. When he got down to purple-faced bellows of rage, she was going over her lips with the lip stick. When he was generally giving an explosive review of the ground he had already covered, the lady was giving a final dab just over her eye lids. Having given herself a final and critical survey in her pocket mirror and finding the job was worthy of her O.K., she proceeded softly to cry at the director’s remarks. She believes in taking up things in their systematic and proper rotation.

Chaplin speaks bitterly of his married life and at the same time glares with melancholy rage and dismay at his first gray hairs. The first time the newspaper photographers took his picture on his arrival in New York, he asked them with alarmed solicitude to retouch the plates so his gray hairs would not show.

[46]

The movie people in New York feel somewhat dismayed because of Charley’s interview with a British newspaper man regarding Fatty Arbuckle and the killing of Virginia Rappe in San Francisco.

The disposition of the movie actors on Broadway is to pile the guilt of every movie scandal that has occurred since the beginning of time upon Fatty’s robust shoulders and let him sink.

I was amused, however, when “Pathe” Lehrmann rushed into the New York papers after the killing and raved for a couple of columns upon the deplorable condition of Fatty’s morals in relation to women. It seems that “Pathe” was engaged to the deceased young lady. He is now Owen Moore’s director at a studio in this city.

Among the several things, that “Pathe” says about Fatty Arbuckle is that Fatty used to clean spittoons in Arizona. “This,” remarks “Pathe” witheringly, “Is what happens when we take people out of the gutter and make them millionaires.”

Well, maybe so; maybe so. But I have a distinct recollection of “Pathe” Lehrmann before he got into the Rolls-Royce class.

In an east side lodging house, Lehrmann is not so very convincing as the one to stare coldly at Fatty across the cold chasm of class inferiority.

[47]

As far as Fatty Arbuckle goes—Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well! He is neither the frightful monster painted by the agitated Herr Lehrmann, nor yet the “clear white inside” person described by the emotional ex-husband of Miss Harris.

Fatty is an ignorant fat boy with a natural impulse to be funny. As a clown, he is there a million. As a millionaire, he is about as convincing as a louse on the shoulders of a decollette heiress. He just doesn’t belong there.

As to the spittoons of the Arizona saloon, well, somebody had to clean ’em. I hope he cleaned them well.

It was Fatty’s misfortune that he was not able to hush up his scandal as the scandal of Zelda Crosby was hushed up recently in New York.

Zelda Crosby was a young scenario writer. When she was about fifteen years old she happened to be invited to a jazz party given by a well known movie star in New York. One of the guests at the party was a “fillum” magnate known over the world for his campaign for purity, etc., in the films.

He took the little girl under the protection of his influence. She developed a flare for writing and he gave her an important job as a scenario writer.

This row of stars means the usual thing that they mean in romances.

[48]

Well, after a while, the girl, who was now in her twenties, realized that he was slipping away from her. She accused him of having met another girl for whom he cared more than for her. Incidentally, he was a married man, but that didn’t count.

The film magnate renewed his protestations to her; but began to find fault with the quality of her scenario work. Then one day the little girl went into the bath room and tipped up a bottle of poison and that was the end.

Well, not quite the end. A girl friend of hers began to talk at a party. She began to tell some very dangerous things she knew of. It happened that this girl’s name is the same as that of a great screen star.

In a panic the film magnate heard what was said at the party. He hurried off to the astonished star a telegram threatening openly to ruin her entire screen career if she ever opened her mouth again about this scandal. Her indignant reply disclosed to the magnate that he had sent a telegram to the wrong girl by mistake.

Then, brethren, there was truly a fine howdydo, and it all came out in the papers—at least some of it did.

One young man—a journalist hanging on the ragged edge of decency, stated that he had some inside facts and intended to bring the whole thing out in a grand jury investigation. But he never got to the grand jury and the [49] whole thing was suddenly hushed up. I leave it to you to imagine what happened.

It looks like a rotten year for the theatre business—and perhaps for other business.

At this writing there is not one legitimate show in New York doing any business. “Six Cylinder Love,” a comedy about a family which buys an automobile before they can really afford to do so, is supposed to be the one big hit of New York and it has already been forced to take blocks of its tickets over to the reduced rate ticket office to be sold at a discount.

Already, with the season hardly started, the beach is strewn with wrecks. One month, after the opening of the season, some nineteen shows had gone broke and had been taken off.

To be honest about it, I think most of the nineteen richly deserved it. For some unaccountable reason, nearly all the shows are infernally talky this year. The curtain goes up on a pair of people who gabble at you over the footlights until you have the blind staggers. When they—and you—are groggy, another pair take up the talk fest. Nothing ever happens but chatter. This is supposed to be the new “literal” and “realistic” school.

The high brow authors contend that their characters gabble over nothing for hours in real life; therefore, they should gabble by the hour about nothing in mimic life. By the same token I dare say they will show them putting hair lotion on their bald spots and trimming [50] their corns and performing the other manifest, but not thrilling or interesting, duties of life.

If we are going to be realistic, b’gosh let’s be really so.

One of the few real successes of the theatre season is a coy and refined young comedy for the pure and young; it is called “Finding Gertie’s Garter.”

Al Woods, the promoter thereof, cheerfully admits all the rough things the papers and the preachers say about it. Al says that last year he listened to the critics who spurred him on to do his duty toward art and refinement. Result, he lost $75,000 on two high-brow plays. Hereafter, he is for bedroom farces “first, last and alla time” as politicians say.

Which brings us to Irving Berlin, the song writer who is just about to blossom out as a producer with a beautiful theatre of his own.

Irving began where Fatty Arbuckle did—or nearly there. He was a waiter and song shouter in a tough cafe on the East Side.

In Berlin’s case, however, he went steadfastly to work and began writing songs. At first he sang his own songs in the cafe; then he got them published. Now he is a millionaire and has the additional distinction of being one of the men who were engaged to Constance Talmadge before she was carried off by a fascinating Greek millionaire.

In fact, Irving was the last of the jilted ones. He got his dismissal from Connie down [51] in Florida. When he came back nursing bruised and broken love hopes some one asked him about the climate in Florida.

“Fine air I hear, Irving?” said the friend.

“Yes” said Irving, “And I got the air.”

Oh, Cholly!

Gwendolyn—“This is my beau’s birthday, but I don’t know what present to give him.”

Susie—“Give him a book.”

“But he already has a book.”

“Give him a box of cigars.”

“But he doesn’t smoke.”

“Give him a case of Near Beer.”

“But he doesn’t drink.”

“Well, if that’s the sort of guy he is, you’d better send him a kimona.”

An Irishman’s Toast

Brigham Young would rejoice in present day styles. A bolt of gingham would go almost around the family.

[52]

Embolusing the Thrombosis

Question (to doctor on witness stand in murder case)—“Just tell the jury what, in your opinion, caused the death of the late Mr. Scrapple.”

Answer—“Well, when deceased laid down his full house with buoyancy of spirit and was about to reach for the pot, the accused, Mr. Jopkins, cried out, ‘Hold on! What’s the matter with them four treys?’ This sudden cessation of undue elation on the part of the late Mr. Scrapple created an anti-climax and caused the blood of the myocardium to go galloping round and round the heart, thus supercharging the pulmonary arteries until the renal, splenic and cerebral vessels went to pieces and left the embolus lodging crosswise against the primary thrombosis. Thus it is self-evident that the booze he had obviously been imbibing became partially coagulated, forming an aneurism which brought about a spiflication of the sine quo non. This would, I think, be sufficient to cause death.”

His Honor—“I think so, too.”

Good Evening, Bartender!

Boyce—I was arrested last night for impersonating an officer.

Royce—What did you do?

Boyce—I knocked at a side door and drank the slug of hootch they handed out.

[53]

Sniff, Sniff

The following poem was written originally on tissue paper with a wire nail.

Whuzzat?

The Patagonian Pee Wee is now described as a small bird of the Andes which stands on its head during severe storms and huddles under its feet.

We are still looking for a mate to the gink who quit drinking coffee because the spoon handle hit his eye.

[54]

In the Day’s News

“The other day my mother sent me to the grocery store for a pound of sugar. The grocer did not have any on hand, so I went out. When I got on the icy sidewalk I slipped and fell, but I went home with some lumps anyway.”

“ Waiter, bring me a cup of coffee the color of my girl’s neck. ”

His Pathos Burning

“You know, folks, what makes me so late in arriving at this party is that my mother lost a lid off the kitchen range, and I had to sit on the stove to keep the smoke in until she found the lid.”

Now, after the outburst of applause has subsided, we will sing a song entitled, “Why the Corkscrew Has Lost Its Pull,” written by William Jennings Bryan.

Let us now sing another little song entitled, “Mother, Hang Out the Service Flag; Father Has Gone to Work Again.”

“How long,” she blushingly inquired, “Must one beat a cow before she will give whipped cream?”

[55]

Up to Date

He—Where is your husband?

She—He went back to his wife.

Height of Piety

Out in San Francisco is a Scotch woman who is so religious that she will not give the children medicine on Saturday night for fear it will work on Sunday.

Our idea of tough luck is to work for your board and then lose your appetite.

I asked her why she wore socks and she said they were not socks; that they were stockings, and she had water on the knee which caused her stockings to shrink.

I suppose her bobbed hair was caused by water on the brain.

Every young man believes in the advice “Begin at the Bottom” when looking over the feminine parade down the street.

My father was killed in a feud.

I never would ride in one of those cheap cars.

Another suitor won her Hand, but I am trying to win her Back.

Lead Me to It!

Advertisement on cover of movie magazine: Picture of Billie Burke Inside. Who said beauty is only skin deep?

[56]

We Printed This Before

I want a good girl and I want her bad.

Cut ’er Out, Dang!!

The man in the restaurant next to me made so much noise drinking his coffee that a deaf man in the front of the restaurant shouted “Run for your lives, the dam has broken!”

A dog can bury a bone and go to sleep knowing his “wife” won’t find it.

But a man can’t get away with it, with a wife who goes through his pockets.

An Accommodating Judge

(From the Creston Gazette.)

[57]

Let Us Sing “Mother O’ Mine”

(From Honolulu Advertiser.)

Four sows with babies and 25 half-bredded Toggenberg goats. M. Fernandez, Tenth Avenue, Palolo.

Joys of Waiters

(From Honolulu Advertiser.)

A working housekeeper is wanted to take charge of a small hotel and two first-class waiters. Apply The Roselawn, 1366 S. King street.

Frisco’s Sanitary Corps

(From the San Francisco Examiner.)

Would like to communicate with a lady that wants to make money on a sanitary article for women, ranging from 14 years to 45. I can not handle, but will co-operate. For further particulars, write box 68898, Examiner.

A Classified Special

(From the Daily University Californian.)

FOR RENT—One woman. Furnished room with sleeping porch; beautiful view. Three blocks north of campus. 4695W.

Pedigreed Bull

(From Denver News and Times.)

Well marked pedigreed Boston terrier puppies, sired by Dinty Moore. 1364 York St.

Going Out

(An Advertisement.)

WANTED: Man to run a soft drink parlor out of town.

[58]

How’re Everythings?

A Boston youth is the hero of this account in the “Globe”:

His parents were what is known as “high-brow,” but they also were good sports. So, when he suggested taking them to a restaurant in the market district of Boston, they agreed.

The mother’s exquisite clothes stamped her as a society woman, but democracy reigns supreme at the market restaurant.

They sat down at the table. The waiter handed the mother a menu and then leaned confidentially forward over the back of the chair and said:

“Well, sister, what’s the good news?”

The Height of Sociability

Virgil W. Church found a case containing 79 half pints of bonded whisky on his farm near here. He notified the police.—Michigan City (Ind.) Dispatch.

Tough Guys

A couple of darkies argued on the street—

“If yo go with dat gal, I’ll cut yo up in pieces so small a ant kin swaller yo.”

“If yo do I’ll hit yo so ha’d it will make a bump on yo haid so big that when dey call the ambulance dey will put the bump inside and yo’all will have to walk.”

[59]

Overheard in a Hospital

A negress rolled her eyes heavenward and exclaimed: “Oh, Lawd if dis am a sample ob married life, I’se glad I’se only engaged.”

Homeopathic Dose

Jazzbo—Please, Mistah Bahbah, I’d like a nickel’s worth o’ hair tonic.

Barber—What in the world do you want with a nickel’s worth for when it’s selling for a dollar a pint? Want to restore the eyebrows on a flea?

Jazzbo—Nossuh nossuh. Wanta fix mah watch. It’s got a speck o’ dandruff in the hair spring.

Fleas Be Fleas

Quick, Doctor!

An inquisitive maiden lady, touring Yellowstone Park came to the boiling lake.

“Say, Mr. Guide, does this lake ever freeze?”

“Oh, yes, it froze a thin coat of ice last winter and a young lady went skating on it. She broke through the ice and scalded her foot.”

[60]

The Life of the Party

When Roscoe Arbuckle was star in “The Life of the Party,” the film adapted from Irving Cobb’s Saturday Evening Post yarn, little did he realize that he would play a similar role in real life. Poet Gordon tells about it in these verses.

A London Report

Complaining at Tottenham of assault, a woman said this was the second time the same man had assaulted her.

“I took no notice when he kicked me the first time,” she said, “because it was dark, and I took it to be my husband.”

“Then I saw it was a stranger, and I screamed.”

“I hate to be a kicker, and generally stand for peace; but the wheel that does the squeaking is the wheel that gets the grease.”—Kipling.

[61]

I. Scream —You ask me to publish the story entitled “Heaven’s Above” and I am herewith complying, poetical style:

Maybe you don’t think that this is the true version, but it is the only one we can think of at present.

Yucan Haver —Your friend, when he said you had eyes like a certain star, probably referred to Ben Turpin’s.

Al A. Baster —Yes, it is very embarrassing for the young man who tries to stop a lady’s nose-bleed by putting a bunch of cold keys down her back, especially if it is at a fancy dress ball.

George —Good looks, money, a car, help along the male flirt—but the only indispensable requisite is a chilled steel nerve.

[62]

Philosophy of the Modern Flapper

By Jane Gaites.

Tonight when you shall gather me in your strong loving arms and marvel at the radiance of my eyes, the golden glamour of my hair, the velvety softness of my pink cheeks, while you tell me you love me, I shall smile.

And you will be content thinking that I smile because of love for you. You will wonder at my naivete, at my simplicity, and innocence. You do not know of my rows and rows of expensive jars that make me beautiful. You do not guess that untold experience has made me “simple.”

And when you draw me even closer to you and kiss me again, more passionately, while you smile at my sweet demureness and simplicity, I too will smile, because with all your vast knowledge of women—dear boy, you are so simple!

“This falls just a little below my expectations,” said the blushing young thing to her dressmaker as she surveyed herself in the mirror. As to what the blushing young thing meant by expectations, you can use your own judgment.

No, gentle reader, the bull durham outfit is not responsible for the practice: “Roll Your Own.”

“The man I marry must have common sense,” she said. But the party broke up when I remarked, “He won’t have.”

[63]

Oh Sprinkle Me With Dew!

The Modern Girl

She told him: “There’s no fun in a graveyard; give me my flowers now.”

Printer’s Note

Just as Ye Printer (get that Ye stuff) was finishing up slapping this crazy stuff in the form we received the following telegram from the boss, sent from Los Onglaze: “HAVE LEARNED THAT WHIZ BANG HAS THE LARGEST CIRCULATION HERE OF ANY TWENTY-FIVE CENT MAGAZINE PUBLISHED ANYWHERE. I AM LEAVING TOMORROW FOR TIAJUANA AND WILL VISIT MORE MOVIE STUDIOS HERE NEXT WEEK. THEN I GO TO HONOLULU.”

Well, by the time this reaches the readers, the boss will be running around loose in the Paradise of hulas, volcanoes, beaches, painted fish and sensuous climates.

Everywhere!

Whiz Bang is on sale at all leading hotels, news stands, 25 cents single copies; on trains 30 cents, or may be ordered direct from the publisher at 25 cents single copies; two-fifty a year.

One dollar for the WINTER ANNUAL.