§ 232 Suffering from a Relapse
In those wicked days before the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act put an end to all liquor-drinking in America there were two actors in New York who sometimes carried their social inclinations to an extreme. To put the matter brutally, they occasionally had attacks of what were known in the vernacular as the “willies.” While recuperating from these seizures they customarily patronized the same sanitarium. Let us, for convenience’s sake, call them A. and B.
It befell one day that A. felt himself to be acutely in need of a period devoted to rest and restoration. As he approached the door of the sanitarium he met his friend, B., rather white and drawn-looking, just coming out.
“ ’Lo, old man,” said A. somewhat thickly, and with difficulty repressing a hiccup, “whaz mazzer wiz you? Same ol’ complaint, eh?”
“I’m all right now,” said B., “but I’ve had an awful time. Never again for me—I’m through. You may think I’m a little bit shaky and nervous now, but you should have seen me last week before I began to get over it. Why, man, for ten days, little red lizards with green eyes and purple tails were crawling all over me.”
With his horrified eyes starting from his head, A. aimed a tremulous forefinger at B.’s coat collar.
“My God, man!” he cried. “You—you ain’t well yet! There’s one of ’em on you now!”
§ 233 One Old Enough to Merit Respect
I venture to present here and now the famous and deservedly immortal tale of the Educated Flea. At a theatrical hotel a vaudeville performer was stopping. He was the owner of a troupe of performing fleas. One evening, at dinner, he was telling his fellow-lodgers how he went about the job of training his tiny pets. To demonstrate, he cleared a space on the table, took one of his fleas, an especially intelligent and gifted insect, out of a small box, and proceeded to put the lively little chap through his paces.
“Hop East!” he commanded, and the flea hopped.