Drippings From the Fawcett
Gentle readers, wet your lips, for whilst with dry tongues thou art yearning, your obedient servant, Bilious Billy, is in the land of liberty—personal and otherwise—basking in Cuba’s sunny clime, in Havana, sucking soda through a straw! Soda! Sure, soda with a dash in it. When we grow tired of fast horses and saintly senoritas, it will be back again to the big pines of northern Minnesota for the fishing season at Breezy Point Lodge. You know, folk, in the winter we Minnesotans can’t fish, as our Norwegian friends would say.
Well, boys and girls, here I am on the road again—just like a wandering Jew. In making my present departure from Robbinsdale, I didn’t know whether I was coming to Montreal or going to Cuba.
The high cost of coal in Robbinsdale made me long for summer at Miami Beach, where there is no charge for hot rolls in the sand and a little chicken nearby. Then again I was reminded of having seen Willie and Mollie playing in the sand, indulging in youthful folly. The sand was terribly hot on Willie’s back and the sun was hot tamale.
Woke up in Chicago with an ice-pack attached to my fevered brow, and appreciating that the United States is the land of personal liberty I hied forth towards Miami to see if I might not be able to obtain a “wee snifter.” Miami is now the legal home of William Jennings Bryan and I did not have much luck in satisfying an unquenchable thirst. Anyway, if I did, it wouldn’t be nice to tell about. Mr. Bryan may have something to do with keeping Miami and the State of Florida bone-dry—which it isn’t—so more power to him. Florida may be dry, but in the unmortal words of our snuff-chewing hired man, I am pleased to report that there are a lot of “damp rascals” here.
Understand the Floridians are seriously considering Bryan for United States Senator. Had the pleasure today of driving through the backyard of the Commoner’s palatial home, but all I could see was the rear door and his smokehouse. Mr. Bryan was too busy addressing a Baptist convention to even invite me to lunch. Tomorrow he is slated for a Bible talk in the city park and if I get up in time, and feel all right, shall listen to his discourse. (Later, didn’t get up in time.)
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After leaving Chicago I stopped at Atlanta for a few days’ sojourn. Here we struck nice warm sunshine. The Atlanta ladies are a genial lot, but their costuming somewhat crashes with the constitutional scheme of affairs as laid down by the eighteenth amendment. Their hats are full of cocktails—and sometimes also their heads, I am told. In fact, a bird of paradise plume is quite in vogue in Atlanta.
The information is also vouchsafed that some Atlanta girls are born foolish, while others marry.