I thought I had struck a maniac, so I tried to humor him.
He came back with a suspicious-looking black bottle and I thought I was a gone goose sure. You see, I had heard so much about the black bottle.
He grabbed my wrist in a grip of iron, poured some of the black bottle stuff on my arm and began to rub it, gently.
Then he began to rub harder and faster, and I could see my arm swell up like a pillow under the fearful treatment.
I kicked, and finally managed to break loose.
"You confounded scoundrel," I says, "what do you mean by assulting me?"
"Assulting you?" says he; "you wanted some of the usual and you got it good and hard, but let me sell you some of my medicine for swollen arms. It's the best thing in the world for such cases."
Did you ever notice what a lot of trouble a simple, little girl may make? Oh! you girls. You're never happy unless you're making some poor lobster show how much money he has, by blowing it in on you.
You know, though, girls, I appreciate you, if no one else does.
If it weren't for you, I'll bet a dollar to Rockfeller's oil-can that none of the young fellows I see here to-night would have ever thought of coming here.
Now I'm going to sing you a little warble entitled:
"What a Surprisingly Fresh Man That Jones Is; or, I'd Like to Meet Him Outside."
Many a man has often cussed,
For only an innocent maid;
Many a bank has gone in the dust,
For just an innocent maid;
Many a judge has not been just,
To only an innocent maid;
Many a saint went on a bust,
For just an innocent maid.
Cho. When Johnny goes to his lady's house
She greets him with a smile;
At once she starts the glim to douse
So he can propose in style.
Many a milkman has got the sack,
For only an innocent maid;
Many a dude has been knocked on his back,
For just an innocent maid;
Many a doctor has had to quack,
For only an innocent maid;
Many a dollar is won on the track,
For just an innocent maid.
Cho. When Johnny takes her to the altar,
He may think it's for his good,
In his opinion soon he'll falter,
When she makes him split the wood.
Many a cop has left his beat,
For only an innocent maid;
Many a gambler has had to cheat,
For just an innocent maid;
Many a commuter has given his seat,
To only an innocent maid;
Many a lover has known pa's foot,
For just an innocent maid.
Cho. Johnny thinks he's caught a prize,
When he's only been married a week;
But when she feeds him on apple pies,
He feels like taking a sneak.
Did you hear that peculiar toot the fellow with the big horn gave when I finished up?
That means "Rotten" in his low vocabulary. He's got a grudge against me.
Once, when he didn't occupy his present high position, he came to me and wanted me to stake him the price of the horn he just insulted me with.
"What!" says I. "Are you going to learn to be a blower? Don't you think you are nuisance enough already?"
You see, I wanted to save the money. He stood firm though, and I had to cough up.
About a week later he came around looking a perfect wreck. His eye was closed, his head bandaged, and his clothes in shreds.
"What's the matter?" says I. "Couldn't you manage the horn."
"Well, you see, Brother Jones," says he, "I could manage the horn all right, but I could not manage the neighbors."
This same fellow is a bird fancier. He breeds all kinds of birds.
I asked him to blow me to a small hot bird and a cold bottle now that he was so wealthy, and the stare he gave me was so cold that it froze the highball I carry in my pocket flask.
I don't care, though, if I didn't have the hot bird I had a cold bottle.
He has a great flock of homing pigeons.
The other day he bet a fellow named Robinson, that he could select two out of the bunch that would come home no matter where they were taken.
Robinson thought a while, and then said he'd bet they couldn't come home from Coney Island. I held the stakes.
When the birds were selected and put in the basket, Robinson slyly clipped their wings.
The next day the fellow came to me and claimed the bet.
"What!" says I. "Did those birds come home?"
"Sure," says he. "But their feet are awfully sore."
Say, the other night I was coming down from Yonkers in a trolley car.
No, I wasn't loaded. Do you think every fellow who goes to Yonkers, has to get loaded to drown his sorrow? No, I was quite sober.
One fellow got up in a hurry to leave and brought up plump against a stunning Fire-Island Cinnamon-Bear blond, on the platform.
"It's a wonder you wouldn't be careful," says she of the red cranium.
"I am," says he, "but I was dazzled by your head-light."
The ruddy complexioned damsel came in and sat beside me.
In the natural course of events we got to talking and swapped childhood memories.
She told me that she was married, but didn't live with her husband.
"In that case," says I, "you must be a grass widow."
"Why, yes," she assented. "By the way, are you a lawn mower?"
I hastened to assure her that I was a married man.
"Do you know," she says, as we were crossing the Harlem River, "I was walking over this bridge one time and suddenly a man ran up, seized me, and before I could cry out, hurled me over the rail."
"Can you swim?" says I.
"No," says she.
"Then how were you saved?"
"Well, you see, I walked ashore."
"Walked ashore," says I. "How could you walk ashore?"
"Well, I had rubber boots on."
I thought that was pretty hard on the Harlem.
Say, that reminds me of a friend of mine who is the most spiteful cuss alive.
The other day he went to visit his uncle whose name is John Smith. He hadn't been to see him in so long that he mistook the house, went up the stoop of the house next door, and rang the bell.
A maid came to the door, evidently very much out of humor.
"Is this John Smith's house?" he asked.
"No, it ain't," she snapped, and slammed the door in his face.
Smith walked the distance of several doors, then went back and rang the same bell.
The identical girl came to the door, and Smith up and said:
"Who the devil said it was John Smith's?" and walked away.
Smith has a wife who is dead stuck on fortune tellers and palmists.
The other day she called upon an East Indian Prince on Thompson Street and had her fortune told.
Among other things, he told her that she would have visitors soon who would come to stay. She couldn't think who it could be.
One night Smith came home, and his wife rushed up to him and cried:
"Now, don't say again there is nothing in fortune telling. He told me that we would have visitors who'd come to stay, and we have. Our cat has just had kittens."
Another time she went to a palmist, who rambled on telling her the usual stuff they tell every one.
Finally, she says:
"There is a line on your hand that indicates you are a very beautiful woman."
"Does my hand tell that?" says Smith's wife.
"Sure," says the palmist. "You don't suppose I could tell that by looking at your face, do you?"
Yeow – by James, I thought I heard a cat that time.
Say, I had an accident with a cat the other night, and I'm nervous for fear the S. P. C. A. will get after me.
You see I came home pretty early and, just as I got my key in the door, I heard something behind me.
I didn't pay any attention, and as I opened the door that something scooted past me and slipped upstairs.
I took off my boot, got a light, and – the rest I'll tell you in my latest sonata, entitled:
"Oh, Bring Back My Tabby To Me."
Not a mew was heard, not a feline note,
As his corpse to the back yard I hurried;
For I laid him low with my trusty boot,
And thought it was time he was buried.
So I sallied forth, in the dead of the night,
My head meanwhile cautiously turning,
For I feared that his mistress, the old maid next door,
Might catch on and give me a burning.
No orthodox coffin enclosed the defunct,
Not in paper or rag did I wind him;
But I shoveled him into his cold, narrow bed,
Where no one was likely to find him.
Yes, softly she'll call to the spirit that's gone,
From his new home in vain to allure.
But little he'll care; for Tom will sleep on —
He has an illness no doctor can cure.
That's a pretty good song, if I do say so myself. I always feel like laughing when I sing it, though. It reminds me of my dear departed friend, Tom O'Moore.
This Tom was the brightest fellow that ever lived.
One day he was greatly troubled with an aching tooth. He went to the dentist and exhibited his swollen jaw.
"Which tooth do you want extracted?" asked the dentist.
Tom pointed to a tooth opposite the swelling.
"Why," says the dentist, "the swelling is on the other side."
"Och," says Tom, "is it that small lump you mane, that's nothin'. That's only where Bridget hit me with the lifter."
Tom had the troublesome tooth taken out and left the place.
Outside, he met his dear friend O'Holleran who, as he saw Tom, yelled:
"I say, Tom, did you hear of the frightful miscarriage of justice that McCarthy was the victim of?"
"No," says Tom, "what was it?"
"Well," says O'Holleran, "they locked poor Mac up for being drunk when he was clane sober."
"Begob," says Tom, "I don't belave it at all, at all. Mac must have been drunk to let them lock him up when he was sober."
"I say, Tom," says O'Holleran, "do you believe in drames?"
"Sure, I do," says Tom. "Whoi?"
"Then what's it a sign of when a married man drames he's a bachelor?"
"Begob," says Tom, "it's a sign of disappointment – when he wakes up."
"Do you know, Tom," says O'Holleran, "I'd give a hundred dollars to know the exact spot I'm going to die on."
"Whoi?" says Tom.
"Whoi, you gossoon, I'd never go near the ould spot at all, at all."
Tom and O'Holleran took a walk through the suburbs, and came upon some blackberry bushes laden with half-ripe fruit.
"I say," says O'Holleran, "what kind of bushes do you call those, Tom?"
"Whoi, you fule," says Tom, "they're blackberries."
"Get out," says O'Holleran, "they're red."
"Sure," says Tom, "but every fule knows that blackberries are always red when they're green."
A little way beyond, they came to a crossroad. Tom said they ought to go to the right and O'Holleran said to the left.
They argued for a while, and Tom says:
"I'll tell you what we'll do. You go by one and I'll take the other. If I get home first, I'll put a chalk mark on the door, and if you get there first you rub it out."
Tom recently imported one of his poor relatives to this country. His name was Pat Sullivan.
Pat was a very thick Irishman, and as he had never seen a railroad in Erin-Go-Bra-a-a-a-ha, he couldn't get it into his head how it worked.
Finally Tom took him up a railroad track to explain the matter to him.
When they were rounding a curve, between two high embankments, a train came thundering behind them.
"Run up the bank for your life," cried Tom, and set a good example by doing it himself.
Pat, however, dug straight down the track, and it was not long before the train overtook him and hurled him forty feet away.
"Ye lobster," says Tom, "whoi didn't you run up the bank as I told you?"
"Begob," says Pat, "if I couldn't beat that bloomin' thing on the level, what chance did I stand running uphill?"
By the way, did you ever get into one of those lunch counter, go-outside-and-get-something-fit-to-eat restaurants? I did, and it's a regular circus. If you've never been, you want to take it in.
The other day I had sixteen cents with which to get something to eat, and I thought I'd chance it.
I stepped into one of these holy terrors and sat down on a revolving stool similar to those they have in dry goods stores.
These seats are placed so closely together that your neighbor's business is your own.
You try to eat your soup. He nudges you and sends it back in your plate.
He tries to eat his pork and beans. You nudge him and he fishes in his vest pocket for pork, and down his shirt front for beans.
Well, I picked up the bill of fare and glanced over it. Really, I hadn't been out late for a week and I didn't know what to make of it.
The first entree was:
"Omelette a la Creole."
"Good heavens!" I thought. "Do they slice Creoles and serve them as omelettes?"
I wasn't very anxious to find out.
The next was:
"Rice soup a la Bellevue."
"Holy smoke, I have the rum habit so bad, I imagine I see Bellevue everywhere I go. I wonder what would happen if I were to take that?"
I got nervous and prepared to leave.
The last thing I saw on the calender was
"Croquettes a la D'Esprit."
"That's it exactly," I thought, "they get so desperate in these places that they hash up all the leavings and call them by their right name."
When I passed the manager of the shebang, he says:
"What's the matter? Are you dissatisfied with what you've had?"
"Not a bit of it," says I, "it's what I haven't had that I am dissatisfied with."
When I got outside of the restaurant, who should I run into but my dear friend, Rufus Sage.
"Hello, Rufus," says I, "how's business?"
"Candidly," says he, "it's rotten. I made only three millions this morning, and I've got to get a new suit this afternoon that will cost all the way from ten to fifteen dollars."
"Too bad," says I.
"Then, besides, I'm liable to be inconvenienced any time," he says, "through an argument I had with a friend of mine this morning. He said I was extravagant, and I said I wasn't."
"Well," says I, "did you succeed in getting him to think the same as yourself?"
"Yes," says he, "but I may get arrested any minute for assult and battery, and they'll fine me not less than five dollars."
I don't think I ever told you of the awful time I had, when I went yachting with my friend Rufus Sage, did I?
Oh! It was a swell time, indeed.
It began to swell the minute we struck the swell outside the harbor, and my poetic soul swelled up within me in great shape.
I was leaning over the rail looking at the beautiful green waves and the reflection of my beautiful face in them (no, I wasn't doing anything else), when my dear friend, Rufus, came to me and said:
"Cheer up, old man, things will get pleasanter, when the moon comes up."
"Darnation," says I, "it has come up, if I ever swallowed it."
Right after that, we encountered a most terrific gale. The wind blew, the storm howled, the ship tossed, and the lightning flashed. In fact, we were in a devil of a mess all around.
I found my ear in the captain's mouth and he was telling me something I didn't want to know.
The captain found my right boot exactly where it should have been under the circumstances.
The last thing I saw was Rufus running to his cabin to get a two-for-five collar button he had left in his trunk.