X PAPER-HANGING

To Editor Home & Ladies Page who realise how wallpaper are like friendship: sometime he stick right, and sometime he don’t.

Dear Mr:

Mrs Bertha Mac Frenzie, a very medium lady residing in Boston, Conn., dis-employed me recently from happy home. I was very satisfactory help to her until following anecdote happen to me.

Mrs Mac Frenzie’s only extravagance are her stingyness. Careful in most everything, she become extra reckless when attempting to save 9c. Her thoughts are filled with skimmed milk & slaughterhouse steak. I am suprised Hon. U. S. Government do not hire her to saw off High Cost of Living before he start to grow any taller. I know because I seen it.

“Togo,” she require of me, “too much wealth is lavished in that soup you make. He is too thick.”

“If he become thinner he will faint away,” I warn out.

“Soup will stand considerable starvation and yet seem hearty,” she deploy. So I do so.

Last Wedsday she approach up to me with arms full of roll-up material.

“I have dishcovered now so I can save 9$!” she deploy with glee-club voice.

“Such saving may involve great expense,” I corrode brightly.

She neglect my chivalry.

“I am determined to paper bedroom of upstairs,” she rake off. “This shall be done by home-made labour. These wallpapers what I got only cost 10c. per roll, thusly saving 1$. Experienced paper hangmen require 4$ per day. It take 2 such to paste a room properly. I shall employ you for nothing to do this valuable task, thusly saving 8$. Therefore, I save 1$ + 8$ = 9$.”

“What clever stingyness you think up!” I oblate. No response from her.

She led me upwards to bedroom where that job must be.

“Have you any knowledge of paper-hanging?” she ask it.

“I never before attended such a lynching,” was answer I make.

“I show you how is,” she reciprocate. So she lay down following tools on floor where I could see:

12 bundles wallpaper of blue complexions tattooed with beauty resembling cauliflowers flirting with grapes.

1 complete bucket filled with undigested dough to make it stick by.

Confused rags to pat with.

1 ironing board to stick paper on top of.

1 ladder to lift paper on when hanging him.

1 shears for cut up paper by.

“Firstly,” correspond Hon. Mrs with shears, “you must take Hon. Paper thusly and manicure edges.”

She make cut-up with shears for show how.

“Nextly you must measure wall with very careful tailorship, so Hon. Paper will fit neatly like a coat.”

I observe her did it.

“Nextly make chop off to Hon. Paper at place where he fits. Then lay him on ironing-board and lather his back completely with dough from Hon. Bucket.”

By brush she do so.

“Next Hon. Paper are ready to be lynched. Raise him tenderly by both ears while climbing ladder and spread him on wall with smoothness resembling butter. If he refuse to lay still, pat him lovingly with rags.”

She teach me that science while I stand gast to observe her skilful thumbs.

“Can you do this jobs?” she require to know.

“Elaborately,” I confiscate.

And yet I were not aware that paperhanging are like poetry, marriage, and other games—deliciously easy to look at, but less easy to do.

So Hon. Mrs Mac Frenzie depart away for make society elsewheres and I was left alonesome with that paper. Firstly I look at him long time admiring the extreme art of his complexion. I could not realise how so many grapes and cauliflowers could get together without being confused. Admiration by me!

Then I start some industry. Firstly I cut sifficient chunk of this flowery decoration so he will fit wall. This were aggrevated task to do, because when I unroll him to make measure, he roll back with rat-trap expression and burst my thumbs. I can only make him behave by putting my feet on him while holding him down to ironing board. Pretty soonly, by extreme skill of swashing, I manage to plaster his back with dough like Mrs Mac Frenzie told me.

Mr Editor, to lubricate wallpaper with paste are difficult art like greasing snakes with cold cream. There are so much longness to him that he can do one thing with front end, while accomplishing otherwise with tail. So it was. Onwards & onwards I continue to paste Hon. Wall Paper while he uncoil to any extent. Pretty soonly front end of him were drooping to carpet, and yet I continue to brush his back.

At lastly he were entirely moist and ready to be lynched. With delicious politeness I pick him up by corners and start to descend up ladder with brave expression of fireman saving actresses. But when I was nearly upward I discover one sad event. Lower end of Hon. Paper refuse to be elevated. For what reason? For reason because he had pasted himself to carpet and clung there with stupidity resembling cats.

“I must domineer this wallpaper with my personality,” I say to self. So I lift both elbows strongly in attempting to jerk him from carpet. With expression of helpless peev peculiar to angle-worms he tore in two. ½ of his flowery egotism drop stickfully to carpet. Other ½ remain affectionately clinging to my lower legs where he remain, however much I beg him to desist off.

Wallpaper, Mr Editor, resemble some female Ladies, beautiful in their complexions, but very sidewise when least expected.

So on that ladder stood me & Hon. Wall Paper clinging together like Romeo & Juliet, but not mentioning love poems. The more I loosened, the more he tightened. By time I was able to disjoint him from my legs, he had fell affectionately on my chest where he make behaviour peculiar to postage stamps. Yet I did not enrage. Diplomacy frequently succeeds where boxing gloves are footless. So I decide to conquer Hon. Wall Paper by kindness. Gently, almost shyly I ripped him from my chest at same moment so arranging my wrists that I could detach him away from my legs. Oh joyful! Soonly he were divorced from me and swinging entirely free where I hold him aloftward by his ears. This were fine moment to paste him suddenly before he understood what I was doing.

So I make quick jump at wall with determined elbows. But Hon. Paper were more sudden than me. Before I could think he looped himself sidewise and became stuck on himself.

This make curious perdiclement. Try as I should to pry him apart, he become more and more absorbed in his personality. By this time his blue complexion were so confused by finger-prints that he look entirely Bertillon. It would require mathematics to tell which was right side of him and which wrong.

Then I decide to kill him at once and try another. So I clump him up in wad resembling laundry and cast him outward by window.

This were cruel thing to do, but there are some things which look best when you can’t see them.

Next piece paper I try were less backward. He stand very tame & quiet while I measure him. He sat still and wagg his tail while I paste him by brush. I love very much to think how polite he act. Pretty soonly he were ready to be hung, so I elope up ladder filled with happy thoughts to think how happy Mrs Mac Frenzie would get when she seen her wall so broke out with buds. With art expression peculiar to Michael Angelo I upraise Hon. Wall Paper aboveward. He lay still and quiet like eggs. Adjusting my thumbs I was entirely ready to paste him when—O pounce!

Oozing damp glue from his annointed back he suddenly fall on my head and surround me where I stood on that ladder.

It were like riding an airship while being buried in a tent full of mucilage. It were like sleeping between sheets of fly-paper.

I were in a very perdiculous position. Must I leap from ladder, thusly bursting neck so far from Japan? Or must I stood there and be gradually smothered up in mural decorations?

I could feel sticky substance drooping from my hair & eyebrows. I stood on my perch like a blind bird.

“What this?” I could see a voice beside me saying so. It were Mrs Mac Frenzie, I could told by the claws in her speech.

“Gug!” I response with all the language I could. I knew she was observing my wallpaper face.

“Come down at oncely!” she holla. I obey by tittering backwards from my perch and walking on air which had a hole in it thus permitting me to fall 12 feet to central room where most of the furniture was, including Hon. Paste Bucket which got confused in everything else including me.

When I pick myself uply from that rumpus, my head was intruding from wallpaper hood like a fanciful millinary.

Hon. Floor were covered by paste, paper, and relics of where I fell.

“You done nice job!” snarred Hon. Mrs who stood in midst.

“I shall do better next place,” I recover.

“You have papered everything in the room except the wall,” she dib sarcastly.

“I are going to paper that next,” are answer for me.

“There shall never not be no Next!” she squabble, while poking me forthly into frostbite of street.

There I stood in coldness without any other overcoat except wall paper I wore.

So I slushed saddishly to trolley remembering words of Hon. Mild Standish. “If you want a thing done wrong, do it yourself!”

Hoping you do so, Yours truly,
Hashimura Togo.