“Is it not a fact that original sin began with Adam and came down direct to you, Oscar?”
Oscar, shielding his mouth with his hand, for he had bad teeth, responded:
“No, my dear, sin commenced with Eve, Cleopatra carried it on and with our dear Lillie the future of sin may be safely left, being in expert hands.”
FIELD’S LIBRARY OF HUMOR
While in Germany, Gene had read up on ideas of humor, and entertained the notion that a “History of Humor” would prove a good seller. The book was to start with “The Smile,” such chapters to follow as: “Feeling Good;” “Pleasant Thoughts;” “Why We Laugh Over the Ridiculous;” “Whims;” “Practical Jokes;” “Fixed Ideas;” “Naiveté;” “Blue-stockings;” “Old Maids,” and so forth.
He jotted these chapters down on the marble top of our table in the Cafe Royal, and I copied the list. I think the above is pretty complete.
THOSE GERMAN PROFESSORS
When Gene Field returned from Hanover, where he had placed his children in school, he was full of the German professors he had met.
I reminded him that Lord Palmerston had called Germany “that damned land of Professors.”
“I know the woods are full of them. I have seen them in droves, good, bad and indifferent, but I put my kids with the human kind of professor, and, besides, those youngsters can take care of themselves. I am told of a private tutor who, on applying for a job at a country house, thought his future paymaster as big a brute as himself. Accordingly, while the rich man was drawing up a contract, this tutor fell upon the boys, his future charges, as he thought, and began to thrash them without any cause whatever in the most cruel and barbarous fashion.