Remarks by Bill Nye

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"Well, I'm very busy, Mr. Kelley. Come again this afternoon."

"That will be too remote. I am very busy myself. Now is the accepted time.
Will you open the door or shall I open it."

The president opened it because it was a good door and he wanted to
preserve it.

Black Jim turned the key in the door and sat down.

"What did you want of me?" says the president

"I wanted to see you about a certificate of deposit I've got here on your
bank for eighteen dollars."

"We can't pay it. Everything is gone."

"Well, I am here to get $18 or to leave you looking like a giblet pie.
Eighteen dollars will relieve you of this mental strain, but if you do not
put up I will paper this wall with your classic features and ruin the
carpet with what remains."

The president hesitated a moment. Then he took a roll out of his boot and
paid Jim eighteen dollars.

"You will not mention this on the street, of course," said the president.

"No," says Jim, "not till I get there."

When the crowd got back, however, the president had fled and he has
remained fled ever since. The longer he remained away and thought it over,
the more he became attached to Canada, and the more of a confirmed and
incurable fugitive he became.

I saw Black Jim last evening and he said he had passed through two bank
failures, but had always realized on his certificates of deposit. One
cashier told Jim that he was the homeliest man that ever looked through
the window of a busted bank. He said Kelley looked like a man who ate bank
cashiers on toast and directors raw with a slice of lemon on top.

Dr. Dizart's Dog.

A man whose mother-in-law had been successfully treated by the doctor, one
day presented him with a beautiful Italian hound named Nemesis.

When I say that the able physician had treated the mother-in-law
successfully, I mean successfully from her son-in-law's standpoint, and
not from her own, for the doctor insisted on treating her for small-pox
when she had nothing but an attack of agnostics. She is now sitting on the
front stoop of the golden whence.

So, after the last sad rites, the broken-hearted son-in-law presented the
physician with a handsome hound with long, slender legs and a wire tail,
as a token of esteem and regard.

The dog was young and playful, as all young dogs are, so he did many
little tricks which amused almost everyone.

One day, while the doctor was away administering a subcutaneous injection
of morphine to a hay-fever patient, he left Nemesis in the office alone
with a piece of rag-carpet and his surging thoughts.

At first Nemesis closed his eyes and breathed hard, then he arose and ate
part of an ottoman, then he got up and scratched the paper off the office
wall and whined in a sad tone of voice.

A young Italian hound has a peculiarly sad and depressing song.

Then Nemesis got up on the desk and poured the ink and mucilage into one
of the drawers on some bandages and condition-powders that the doctor used
in his horse-practice.

Nemesis then looked out of the window and wailed. He filled the room with
robust wail and unavailing regret.

After that he tried to dispel his _ennui_ with one of the doctor's old
felt hats that hung on a chair; but the hair oil with which it was
saturated changed his mind.

The doctor had magenta hair, and to tone it down so that it would not
raise the rate of fire insurance on his office, he used to execute some
studies on it in oil--bear's oil.

This gave his hair a rich mahogany shade, and his hat smelled and looked
like an oil refinery.

That is the reason Nemesis spared the hat, and ate a couple of
porousplasters that his master was going to use on a case of croup.

At that time the doctor came in, and the dog ran to him with a glad cry of
pleasure, rubbing his cold nose against his master's hand. The able
veterinarian spoke roughly to Nemesis, and throwing a cigar-stub at him,
broke two of the animal's delicate legs.

[Illustration: BUSTLE AND CONFUSION.]

After that there was a low discordant murmur and the angry hum of medical
works, lung-testers, glass jars containing tumors and other bric-a-brac,
paper-weights and Italian grayhound bisecting the orbit of a redheaded
horse-physician with dude shoes.

When the police came in, it was found that Nemesis had jumped through a
glass door and escaped on two legs and his ear.

Out through the autumnal haze, across the intervening plateau, over the
low foot-hills, and up the Medicine Bow Range, on and ever onward sped the
timid, grieved and broken-hearted pup, accumulating with wonderful
eagerness the intervening distance between himself and the cruel promoter
of the fly-blister and lingering death.

How often do we thoughtlessly grieve the hearts of those who love us, and
drive forth into the pitiless world those who would gladly lick our hands
with their warm loving tongues, or warm their cold noses in the meshes of
our necks.

How prone we are to forget the devotion of a dumb brute that thoughtlessly
eats our lace lambrequins, and ere we have stopped to consider our mad
course, we have driven the loving heart and the warm wet tongue and the
cold little black nose out of our home-life, perhaps into the cold, cold
grave or the bleak and relentless pound.

Chinese Justice.

They do things differently in China. Here in America, when a man burgles
your residence, you go and confide in a detective, who keeps your secret
and gets another detective to help him. Generally that is the last of it.
In China, not long ago, the house of a missionary was entered and
valuables taken by the thieves. The missionary went to the authorities
with his tale and told them whom he suspected. That's the last he heard of
that for three weeks. Then he received a covered champagne basket from the
Department of Justice. On opening it he found the heads of the suspected
burglars packed in tinfoil and in a good state of preservation. These
heads were not sent necessarily for publication, but as an evidence of
good faith on the part of the Department of Unimpeded Justice. Mind you,
there was no postponement of the preliminary examination, no dilatory
motions and changes of venue, no pleas to the jurisdiction of the court,
no legal delays and final challenges of jurors until an idiotic jury had
been procured who hadn't read the papers, no ruling out of damaging
testimony, and finally filing of bill of exceptions, no appeal and delay,
or appeal afterward to another court which returned the defendant to the
court of original jurisdiction for review, and years of waiting for the
prosecuting witnesses to die of old age and thus release the defendant.
There is nothing of that kind in China. You just hand in your orders to
the judicial end of the administration, and then you retire. Later on, the
delivery man brings in your package of heads, makes a salaam, and goes
away.

Now, this is swift and speedy justice for you. I don't know how the guilt
of the defendants is arrived at, but there's nothing tedious about it. At
least, there's nothing tedious to the complainant I presume they make it
red-hot for the criminal.

Still this style of justice has its drawbacks. For instance, you are at
dinner. You have a large and select company dining with you. You are about
to carve the roast There is a ring at the door. The servant announces that
a judicial officer is at the drawbridge and desires to speak with you. You
pull your napkin out of your bosom, lay the carving knife down on the
virgin table cloth, and go to the door. There the minister of justice
presents you with a champagne basket and retires. You return to the dining
hall, leaving your basket on the sideboard. After a while you announce to
your guests that you have just received a basket of Mumm's extra dry with
the compliments of the government, and that you will, with the permission
of those present, open a bottle. You arm yourself with a corkscrew, open
the basket, and thoughtlessly tip it over, when two or three human heads,
with a pained and grieved expression on the face, roll out on the table.

When you are looking for a quart bottle of sparkling wine and find instead
the cold, sad features and reproachful stare of the extremely deceased and
_hic jacet_ Chinaman, you naturally betray your chagrin. I like to see
justice moderately swift, and, in fact I've seen it pretty forthwith in
its movements two or three times; but I cannot say that I would be
prepared for this style.

Perhaps I'm getting a little nervous in my old age, and a small matter
jars my equilibrium; but I'm sure a basket of heads handed in as I was
seated at the table would startle me a little at first, and I might forget
myself.

A friend of mine, under such circumstances, made what the English would
call "a doosed clevah" remark once in Shanghai. When he opened the basket
he was horrified, but he was cool. He was old sang froid from
Sangfroidville. He first took the basket and started for the back room,
with the remark: "My friends, I guess you will have to ex-queuese me."
Then he pulled down his eyelids and laughed a hoarse English laugh.

Answers to Correspondents.

Caller--Your calling cards should be modest as to size and neatly
engraved, with an extra flourish.

In calling, there are two important things to be considered: First, when
to call, and, second, when to rise and hang on the door handle.

Some make one-third of the call before rising, and then complete the call
while airing the house and holding the door open, while others consider
this low and vulgar, making at least one-fourth of the call in the hall,
and one-half between the front door and the gate. Different authorities
differ as to the proper time for calling. Some think you should not call
before 3 or after 5 P.M., but if you have had any experience and had
ordinary sense to start with, you will know when to call as soon as you
look at your hand.

[Illustration]

Amateur Prize Fighter.--The boxing glove is a large upholstered buckskin
mitten, with an abnormal thumb and a string by which it is attached to the
wrist, so that when you feed it to an adversary he cannot swallow it and
choke himself. There are two kinds of gloves, viz., hard gloves and soft
gloves.

I once fought with soft gloves to a finish with a young man who was far my
inferior intellectually, but he exceeded me in brute force and knowledge
of the use of the gloves. He was not so tall, but he was wider than
myself. Longitudinally he was my inferior, but latitudinally he
outstripped me. We did not fight a regular prize-fight. It was just done
for pleasure. But I do not think we should abandon ourselves entirely to
pleasure. It is enervating, and makes one eye swell up and turn blue.

I still think that a young man ought to have a knowledge of the manly art
of self-defense, and if I could acquire such a knowledge without getting
into a fight about it I would surely learn how to defend myself.

The boxing glove is worn on the hand of one party, and on the gory nose of
the other party as the game progresses. Soft gloves very rarely kill
anyone, unless they work down into the bronchial tubes and shut off the
respiration.

[Illustration: "HE EXCEEDED ME IN BRUTE FORCE."]

Lecturer, New York City.--You need not worry so much about your costume
until you have written your lecture, and it would be a good idea to test
the public a little, if possible, before you do much expensive printing.
Your idea seems to be that a man should get a fine lithograph of himself
and a $100 suit of clothes, and then write his lecture to fit the
lithograph and the clothes. That is erroneous.

You say that you have written a part of your lecture, but do not feel
satisfied with it. In this you will no doubt find many people will agree
with you.

You could wear a full dress suit of black with propriety, or a Prince
Albert coat, with your hand thrust into the bosom of it. I once lectured
on the subject of phrenology in the southern portion of Utah, being at
that time temporarily busted, but still hoping to tide over the dull times
by delivering a lecture on the subject of "Brains, and how to detect their
presence." I was not supplied with a phrenological bust at that time, and
as such a thing is almost indispensable, I borrowed a young man from
Provost and induced him to act as bust for the evening. He did so with
thrilling effect, taking the entire gross receipts of the lecture course
from my coat pocket while I was illustrating the effect of alcoholic
stimulants on the raw brain of an adult in a state of health.

[Illustration: MAKING REPAIRS.]

You can remove spots of egg from your full dress suit with ammonia and
water, applied by means of a common nail brush. You do not ask for this
recipe, but, judging from your style, I hope that it may be of use to you.

Martin F. Tupper, Texas.--The poem to which you allude was written by
Julia A. Moore, better known as the Sweet Singer of Michigan. The last
stanza was something like this:

"My childhood days are past and gone,
And it fills my heart with pain,
To think that youth will nevermore
Return to me again.
And now, kind friends, what I have wrote,
I hope you will pass o'er
And not criticise as some has hitherto here--
before done."

Miss Moore also wrote a volume of poems which the farmers of Michigan are
still using on their potato bugs. She wrote a large number of poems, all
more or less saturated with grief and damaged syntax. She is now said to
be a fugitive from justice. We should learn from this that we cannot evade
the responsibility of our acts, and those who write obituary poetry will
one day be overtaken by a bob-tail sleuth hound or a Siberian nemesis with
two rows of teeth.

Alonzo G., Smithville.--Yes, you can learn three card monte without a
master. It is very easy. The book will cost you twenty-five cents and then
you can practice on various people. The book is a very small item, you
will find, after you have been practicing awhile. Three card monte and
justifiable homicide go hand in hand. 2. You can turn a jack from the
bottom of the pack in the old sledge, if you live in some States, but west
of the Missouri the air is so light that men who have tried it have
frequently waked up on the shore of eternity with a half turned jack in
their hand, and a hole in the cerebellum the size of an English walnut.

You can get "Poker and Three Card Monte without a Master" for sixty cents,
with a coroner's verdict thrown in. If you contemplate a career as a monte
man, you should wear a pair of low, loose shoes that you can kick off
easily, unless you want to die with your boots on.

Henry Ubet, Montana.--No, you are mistaken in your assumption that
Socrates was the author of the maxim to which you allude. It is of more
modern origin, and, in fact, the sentence of which you speak, viz: "What a
combination of conflicting and paradoxical assertions is life? Of what use
are logic and argument when we find the true inwardness of the bologna
sausage on the outside?" were written by a philosopher who is still
living. I am willing to give Socrates credit for what he has said and
done, but when I think of a sentiment that is worthy to be graven on a
monolith and passed on down to prosperity, I do not want to have it
attributed to such men as Socrates.

Leonora Vivian Gobb, Oleson's Forks, Ariz.--Yes. You can turn the front
breadths, let out the tucks in the side plaiting and baste on a new dagoon
where you caught the oyster stew in your lap at the party. You could also
get trusted for a new dress, perhaps. But that is a matter of taste. Some
dealers are wearing their open accounts long this winter and some are not.
Do as you think best about cleaning the dress. Benzine will sometimes
eradicate an oyster stew from dress goods. It will also eradicate everyone
in the room at the same time. I have known a pair of rejuvenated kid
gloves to break up a funeral that started out with every prospect of
success. Benzine is an economical thing to use, but socially it is not up
to the standard. Another idea has occurred to me, however. Why not riprap
the skirt, calk the solvages, readjust the box plaits, cat stitch the
crown sheet, file down the gores, sandpaper the gaiters and discharge the
dolman. You could then wear the garment anywhere in the evening, and half
the people wouldn't know anything had happened to it.

James, Owatonna, Minn.--You can easily teach yourself to play on the tuba.
You know what Shakespeare says: "Tuba or not tuba? That's the question."

How true this is? It touches every heart. It is as good a soliliquy as I
ever read. P.S.--Please do not swallow the tuba while practicing and
choke yourself to death. It would be a shame for you to swallow a nice new
tuba and cast a gloom over it so that no one else would ever want to play
on it again.

Florence.--You can stimulate your hair by using castor oil three ounces,
brandy one ounce. Put the oil on the sewing machine, and absorb the brandy
between meals. The brandy will no doubt fly right to your head and either
greatly assist your hair or it will reconcile you to your lot. The great
attraction about brandy as a hair tonic is, that it should not build up
the thing. If you wish, you may drink the brandy and then breathe hard on
the scalp. This will be difficult at first but after awhile it will not
seem irksome.

Great Sacrifice of Bric-a-brac.

Parties desiring to buy a job-lot of garden tools, will do well to call
and examine my stock. These implements have been but slightly used, and
are comparatively as good as new. The lot consists in part of the
following:

One three-cornered hoe, Gothic in its architecture and in good running
order. It is the same one I erroneously hoed up the carnation with, and
may be found, I think, behind the barn, where I threw it when I discovered
my error. Original cost of hoe, six bits. Will be closed out now at two
bits to make room for new goods.

Also one garden rake, almost as good as new. One front tooth needs
filling, and then it will be as good as ever. I sell this weapon, not so
much to get rid of it, but because I do not want it any more. I shall not
garden any next spring. I do not need to. I began it to benefit my health,
and my health is now so healthy that I shall not require the open-air
exercise incident to gardening any more. In fact, I am too robust, if
anything. I will, therefore, acting upon the advice of my royal physician,
close this rake out, since the failure of the Northwestern Car Company, at
50 cents on the dollar.

Also one lawn-mower, only used once. At that time I cut down what grass I
had on my lawn, and three varieties of high-priced rose bushes. It is one
of the most hardy open-air lawn-mowers now made. It will outlive any other
lawn-mower, and be firm and unmoved when all the shrubbery has gone to
decay. You can also mow your peony bed with it, if you desire. I tried it.
This is also an easy running lawn-mower, I would recommend it to any man
who would like to soak his lawn with perspiration. I mowed my lawn, and
then pushed a street-car around in the afternoon to relax my over-strained
muscles. I will sacrifice this lawn-mower at three-quarters of its
original cost, owing to depression in the stock of the New Jerusalem gold
mine, of which I am a large owner and cashier-at-large.

Will also sell a bright new spade, only used two hours spading for
angle-worms. This is a good, early-blooming and very hardy angle-worm
spade, built in the Doric style of architecture. Persons desiring a spade
flush, and lacking one spade to "fill," will do well to give me a call. No
trouble to show the goods.

I will also part with a small chest of carpenter's tools, only slightly
used. I had intended to do a good deal of amateur carpenter work this
summer, but, as the presidential convention occurs in June, and I shall
have to attend to that, and as I have already sawed up a Queen Anne chair,
and thoughtlessly sawed into my leg, I shall probably sacrifice the tools.
These tools are all well made, and I do not sell them to make money on
them, but because I have no use for them. I feel as though these tools
would be safer in the hands of a carpenter. I'm no carpenter. My wife
admitted that when I sawed a board across the piano-stool and sawed the
what-do-you-call-it all out of the cushion.

[Illustration: OPEN-AIR EXERCISE.]

Anyone desiring to monkey with the carpenter's trade, will do well to
consult my catalogue and price-list. I will throw in a white holly
corner-bracket, put together with fence nails, and a rustic settee that
looks like the Cincinnati riot. Young men who do not know much, and
invalids whose minds have become affected, are cordially invited to call
and examine goods. For a cash trade I will also throw in arnica,
court-plaster and salve enough to run the tools two weeks, if ordinary
care be taken.

If properly approached, I might also be wheedled into sacrificing an
easy-running domestic wheelbarrow. I have domesticated it myself and
taught it a great many tricks.

A Convention.

The officers and members of the Home for Disabled Butter and Hoary-headed
Hotel Hash met at their mosque last Saturday evening, and, after the roll
call, reading of the moments of the preceding meeting by the Secretary,
singing of the ode and examination of all present to ascertain if they
were in possession of the quarterly password, explanation and signs of
distress, the Most Esteemed Toolymuckahi, having reached the order of
communications and new business and good of the order, stated that the
society was now ready to take action, or, at least, to discuss the
feasibility of holding a series of entertainments at the rink. These
entertainments had been proposed as a means of propping up the tottering
finances of the society, and procuring much-needed funds for the purpose
of purchasing new regalia for the Most Esteemed Duke of the Dishrag and
the Most Esteemed Hired Man, each of whom had been wearing the same red
calico collar and cheese-cloth sash since the organization of the society.
Funds were also necessary to pay for a brother who had walked through a
railroad trestle into the shoreless sea of eternity, and whose widow had a
policy of $135.25 against this society on the life of her husband.

Various suggestions were made; among them was the idea advanced by the
Most Highly Esteemed Inside Door-Slammer that, as the society's object
was, of course, to obtain funds, would it not be well to consider, in the
first place, whether it would not be as well for the Most Esteemed
Toolymuckahi to appoint six brethren in good standing to arm themselves
with great care, gird up their loins and muzzle the pay-car as it started
out on its mission. He simply offered this as a suggestion, and, as it was
a direct method of securing the coin necessary, he would move that such a
committee be appointed by the Chair to wait on the pay-car and draw on it
at sight.

The Most Esteemed Keeper of the Cork-screw seconded the motion, in order,
as he said, to get it before the house. This brought forward very hot
discussion, pending which the presiding officer could see very plainly
that the motion was unpopular.

A visiting brother from Yellowstone Park Creamery No. 17, stated that in
their society "an entertainment of this kind had been given for the
purpose of pouring a flood of wealth into the coffers of the society, and
it had been fairly successful. Among the attractions there had been
nothing of an immoral or lawless nature whatever. In the first place, a
kind of farewell oyster gorge had been given, with cove oysters as a
basis, and $2 a couple as an after-thought. A can of cove oysters
entertained thirty people and made $30 for the society. Besides, it was
found after the party had broken up that, owing to the adhesive properties
of the oysters, they were not eaten; but the juice, as it were, had been
scooped up and the puckered and corrugated gizzards of the sea had been
preserved. Acting upon this suggestion, the society had an oyster patty
debauch the following evening at $2 a couple. Forty suckers came and put
their means into the common fund. We didn't have enough oysters to quite
go around, so some of us cut a dozen out of an old boot leg, and the
entertainment was a great success. We also had other little devices for
making money, which worked admirably and yielded much profit to the
society. Those present also said that they had never enjoyed themselves so
much before. Many little games were played, which produced great merriment
and considerable coin. I could name a dozen devices for your society, if
desired, by which money could be made for your treasury, without the risk
or odium necessarily resulting from robbing the pay-car or a bank, and yet
the profit will be nearly as great in proportion to the work done."

Here the gavel of the Most Esteemed Toolymuckahi fell with a sickening
thud, and the visiting brother was told that the time assigned to
communications, new business and good of the order had expired, but that
the discussion would be taken up at the next session, in one week, at
which time it was the purpose of the chair to hear and note all
suggestions relative to an entertainment to be given at a future date by
the society for the purpose of obtaining the evanescent scad and for the
successful flash of the reluctant boodle.

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