MY DEAR JACK,—This is the place where William Shakespeare was born. He was the man that some people say didn't write his own works, but I guess there must be some mistake about that, because if he didn't, why then they weren't his own works. Pop says that's a very suttle point that nobody else ever thought of and I think he's right, though I don't know what suttle means. We came down here from London yesterday, and on the whole I was kind of glad to get away. We used to think it would be nice to go to the circus every day, and I remember feeling very badly once because I couldn't, but you change your mind after being in London a couple of weeks with nothing but go, go, go, and see, see, see from morning until night. I've seen so much in London that I can't keep it straight in my head except the wax-works and they were royal. They had a collection of Kings and Queens there that beats anything I ever saw and Pop says they're just as valuable as the real article, except in the matter of jewelry, which is only imitation and made of paste. I said I'd rather see a real King than a wax King, but Pop says the wax King would pay just as much attention to me as a real King, and that you could slap a wax King on the back, which you wouldn't be allowed to do with a real King. I don't know about that though. I'd like to try it once. I sort of feel that if I could get hold of a real King he and I would get along pretty well together, because when I saw the Prince of Whales it struck me that he wasn't much more than a human being after all, and from the way he wore his hat, wouldn't mind much if somebody did slap him on the back and tell him a bear story. I'd like mightily to try that bear story of Sandboys' on that Whales fellow. I don't believe he'd be very horty after he'd heard half of it.
In some ways though the wax people are more interesting than the real rulers. They wear better clothes. The wax Prince was a great deal more gorgeous than the real one. He simply blossomed all over with jewels and medals and uniform. There wasn't any beaver hat and umbrella business about the wax one, and all the wax Kings had their crowns on. I always thought Kings got along without hats and wore gold bands with prongs on 'em all around their foreheads, but Pop says they gave up that because it gave 'em colds in the heads going out with prongs on, and besides the English crown was too valuable to hang on a hat-rack.
They had wax plain people too, sitting all around the place to make it look popular. A man came in here once and asked a wax policeman where the figure of Napoleon was, and of course the wax policeman didn't say a word, and the man got mad and took his number and complained about him for not being civil. There's a Chamber of Horrors too where they keep the wax heads of bad people and show you how burglars look. Generally they didn't look any worse than the fine people upstairs, only their clothes weren't so good and they didn't wear diamonds.
Napoleon wasn't half as great looking as I thought he would be. Pop says he wasn't the kind of a man to work up in wax anyhow. He had a face that needed cast-iron or granite to make it go as a figure in a wax-work show, and as for the Duke of Wellington that beat him at Waterloo, he didn't show up for much in wax except his nose and that was fearful. He had a funny nose, the Duke of Wellington had and I guess that's what beat Napoleon. If Napoleon ever saw it it must have made him laugh, and nobody can fight and laugh at the same time. He had a hard nose to follow if the wax-work was like him, because it went in two directions. If I had a nose like that and wanted to go somewhere and somebody told me to follow my nose the way some people do sometimes, I'd know what they meant though. They'd mean go across our block, turn a corner and go down two. It had a thank-you-marm in it like country road's that you slide down hill on in winter. But he got there just the same, which I'm sorry for because Napoleon wasn't half as tall as he was, and I like to see the little man win generally.
Next to the wax-works I remember the Zoo clearest of all I've seen. I saw more monkies than you could shake a stick at and the fun they were having made me wish I might be one of 'em for a little while. Some of 'em looked almost as human as our hired man, and Pop says he didn't know but what they were nearly as useful. The only objection to 'em was that they were never quite still enough to be good hired men. Besides monkies they had bears, and horned toads, and red, white, and blue parrots—Pop says he thinks the red white and blue parrots are called Jingo-birds, and we have lots of 'em in the United States, but I never saw any up our way, and I guess if we had 'em I'd know it because they spend most of their time screeching and shaking their feathers. I didn't care much for the snakes. They've got a whole house full of 'em, but they don't amount to much, spending most of their time asleep. They aren't half as lively, nor any more snakey to look at than the elephants' trunks. The Elephants in this Zoo are awfully friendly and they'll eat anything from chocolate creams to pie. There was a man in the Zoo once that saw a little girl giving the Elephant a piece of chocolate and he thought it was tobacco, so when the elephant put out his trunk for something from him he put his cigar in it, forgetting unfortunately that it was still lit, and the elephant got awful mad and grabbed the man around the waist and threw him up in the air so hard that the Zoo man says he hasn't come down yet, and that was three years ago. Try that on Sandboys and see what he has to say about it.
I've used up all my paper now and so must stop, or else I'd tell you all about that Shakespeare man who was born here. He was a great man and wrote Julius Cæsar and lots of plays that have people die in, right before your eyes. They still keep his memory green here and Pop says are making more money out of doing so in a week than Shakespeare made in a year. He never wrote his name twice alike and was buried in the church. His grave is very interesting and has an epitaph on it forbidding anybody to dust it off, which I think is mighty queer.
Next Monday, we are going over to Paris, and whenever I have the time I study a little French. I've learned already to say bon jour so that Pop knows what I mean and before long I expect to know the language well enough to talk to myself in it anyhow.
Always yours,
Bob.
It is only a question of time when the Cambridge High and Latin schools will be forced to compete in interscholastic sports as separate institutions. Already the football authorities have refused to recognize a C. H. and L. eleven, and at the recent annual meeting of the Baseball Committee a fight was made to force the united Cambridge schools to enter separate baseball teams. The battle was lost; but the feeling against the Cambridge schools seems to be very strong, and sooner or later the High-school and the Latin school will be compelled to stand on their individual merits.
The constitution of the Baseball League provides that no amendment can be made without a two-thirds vote, and when the question of separating the Cambridge High-school from the Cambridge Latin School in baseball came up, the vote stood three to three, and consequently C. H. and L. will be represented by one nine in the league games this spring. The schools that voted for C. H. and L. were the English High, the Somerville High, and, naturally, the Cambridge High and Latin. English High's representatives claimed that they voted to allow the schools to play as one, because separation would make the number of teams in the league too great, and they also thought the expense of such an arrangement would be inadvisable. Somerville High voted for the Cambridge institutions because it, too, is what they call there a "combined" school, and it was practically voting for itself by standing up for C. H. and L. The three schools on the opposition side were the Roxbury Latin, Boston Latin, and Hopkinson's. They voted for separation on the ground that it was for the best interests of interscholastic sport in Boston.
The Baseball and Football Interscholastic leagues are encouraged and looked after by Harvard University athletes, because they develop players who enter Harvard and make good material for the university tennis. For that reason the influence of Harvard men has always been exerted in behalf of the schools that send the best and the most material to college, and also, of course, for the best interests of sport. It was largely due to the influence of Harvard men that C. H. and L. was forced out of the football association. Eventually these graduates will doubtless take the same stand in baseball.