Through the Outlooking Glass

by Simeon Strunsky

"Lincoln is right," said the Red Knight. "And now I am going to Chicago."

"That's a very good sign," said the gentleman in the bathing suit.

"What is?" said the Red Knight, blushing with delight.

"That," said the other, pointing out of the window. "Can you read it? 'Use Walnut Oil and Save Your Hair.' It sounds very convincing."

But the Red Knight was once more lost in thought, and the gentleman in the bathing suit turned to Alice.

"I am an upholsterer by trade, you know," he said, "but in the summer I give lessons on the violin."

"What an odd combination!" said Alice. "Do you play well?"

"Oh I make more or less of a respectable living out of it," he said. "It's more respectable than upholstering, but it's less of a living."

Here the Red Knight looked up again. "What are those famous words in Lincoln's Second Inaugural, Alice? You know what I mean. 'With— With——' How does it go?"

"I know what you mean," said the gentleman in the bathing suit as he rolled his menu-card into a tube and began shooting olive-pits through it. "You mean, 'With Alice towards none, with hilarity for all—'"