A Book Without A Title Part 7

LV

ECCE h.o.m.o

A homely woman smiled at a man. And the man, puzzled and speculating what was wrong with him, slouched on.

A pretty woman smiled at a man. And the man, with the mien of a c.o.c.k, threw out his chest and strutted on.

LVI

THE ACTOR

A poet, poor and neglected, lived up under the dusty eaves, with for sole companion a parrot. One day, the poet evolved a particularly lovely line and, in his happiness, repeated it to himself aloud, and time upon time.

A week later, some portly persons, pa.s.sing beneath the lofty window, espied the parrot perched upon the sill and heard it speak the poet's line. Breathless with amazement, they stopped and cried out: "What a _wonderful_ bird!"

LVII

VADE MEc.u.m

An infatuated young man sought counsel at the bazaar of an ancient and prayed the ancient tell him how he might learn of his fair lady's faults.

"Go forth among her women friends," spake the venerable one, "and praise her in their hearing."

LVIII

b.u.t.tERFLIES

A man beheld a b.u.t.terfly and, catching her, held her in his hands and feasted his eyes upon her prettiness. But as he held her so, the pollen rubbed off her wings and she fluttered, a pitiable thing, weakly from his grasp.

A man beheld a b.u.t.terfly and, catching her, held her in his arms and feasted his eyes upon her prettiness. But as he held her so, the powder rubbed off her nose and....

LIX

BOOMERANG

There was a critic--a sincere and art-loving man--who flouted the mob's taste, who inveighed against the popular, who protested vigorously against the low, mean art form that in dramatic shape packed nightly the playhouses of the great city with the unesthetic, artistically depraved and vulgar bourgeoisie. That things should come to so unholy a pa.s.s, he sighed.

The critic never stopped to consider that the journal which he graced had in the great city a daily circulation of half a million.

LX

ADVICE

"Beware," warned the Mind, solemnly.

The Heart, whistling a gay tune, c.o.c.ked its hat upon one ear, gave a twist to its cravat, and kicked the old savant down stairs.

LXI

PASTEL

"If only I had his youth!" sighed the old gentleman looking out of the window of his halted limousine at the young man standing in the roadway.

"If only I had his experience!" sighed the young man standing in the crowded roadway looking at the old gentleman through the window of the halted limousine.

"If only they'd get a move on and let a man do his work!" said the middle-aged street-sweep, smacking his lips over the fine flavour of his chewing tobacco and taking a deep breath of the keen autumn air.

LXII

IMITATIONS

Resplendent in silks and furs and a marvelous necklace of diamonds, she sat with superior mien in an opera box. Now and again, with an air of infinite ennui and disdain, she glanced coolly aloft through her lorgnette at the eager poor in the steep, high alt.i.tudes of the galleries.

The people in the great opera house whispered to one another that the marvelous necklace of diamonds was unquestionably an imitation.

"Somehow," they said, "it looks like one." But they were wrong. The necklace of diamonds was quite genuine. It was not the necklace of diamonds, but the lady that was the imitation.