Wichita eagle., 1888-05-22

ful. w omen stood In their shop doors cHaI-
tering; open carriages rolled by; somebody
in the piano shop was playing the quartet
from "Rigoletto," and between the jalousies
of a near house the professor could see
party of men and women playing cards at a
round table. a man who believes in bacteria
will go to any length, and there is no doubt
the professor, cycling them pitifully, thought
their frivolity the sign Of unmistakable
bacteria which ne hoped to locate and dis
cover some day. But tonight the professor
was less disposed than usual to be critical or
severe and he leaned over the railing looking
at life from a new point of view with such
an Enthusiastically healthy and human GU
riosity as would have delighted his doctor.
A crowd Of opera singers came out of the
restaurant at the corner, and as the lat
ticed doors swung like pendulums, be
had winks Of views of a sanded floor, round
tables, walters in white linen jackets, little
hillocks of golden bread piled on the counter,
little green forests of chicory, tumblers Of
red wine. The opera singers were talking
away and singing airily scraps of Rossini
and Gounod and Verdi as if there was moth
ing in the world SO common as grand opera.
The women were fat and reminded him Of
the rue de Ia Paix and the boulevard des
Italiens, and the men had beautiful Threats
rising above their low cut collars And then
he looked over the way again. She was at
the piano singing, with her beautiful head
on one side like birds.
Monsieur Microbee, Monsieuri Your new
milk will be hold if you do not soon drink it
up called laughing Nanette from the bal
cony above the entresOl and pelted him with
q rose.
Professor Microbe smiled. Not the way he
smiled when he evolved a new theory CT
when he read his scientific papers, or even as
he smiled in the stiffiy starched bosom of his
own family, but a genuine smile that said,
81 don't care, Nanette, and he caught the
rose and fastened it IN his buttonhole.
The beautiful woman was going to the
opera. A carriage was at the door, and she
stood before the mirror pulling out the rich
pufTs of her night black hair and fastening a
a red rose behind her ear. Her lovely
arms were uplifted, and a song and laugh
came from her red mouth. Some one
wrapped cloak about her, gave her her fan,
glasses, gloves and flowers, and then she was
gone.
Is it necessary to explain that Professor
Microbe followed her to the opera. nearly
Zl1S NdLeILe WIFI Sic IicI hin III CQ6
corridor dressed in faultless evening attire
and looking SO distinguished and every inch
professor!
He looked about the grand old building,
crowded with women and here and there the
black oasis of a man, and he recognized with
amazement and relief the familiar faces and
bald heads and peculiar bumps of quite
number of learned professors and distin-
guished NJ. DIS These sat listening to the
music of William Tell" granting content
eddy over the sweetest passages and at the
difficult bars, saying broadly and loudly,
'Bravol bravol" as if grand opera and not
bacteria, music and not metaphysics, was
the very best thing in life.
Under the mummy cloths in which the
professor had persistently wrapped his soul,
he was good deal like other men There
wasn't anything he wouldn't do, nothing he
wouldn't enjoy, if only he was kept in public
countenance by those Of his own kind, and
the sight of those familiar bumps-for
no man in the world who knew of such
things could fail to recognize the bumps Of
our learned men, once he had seen 'em-did
more to revolutionize the professor than gal
Ions of pepsine or whatever might be the
stuff dyspeptics are made Of. He at once
and forever flung his theory about midnight
suppers to the deuce, as his doctor had Or
dered, when he heard her say to some favored
mortals: "Come home to supper with us
after the opera"
And that night after the opera he followed
her home, and went again to his balcony to
gaze into that free, jolly, joyous dining
room, where no blinds were pulled down and
where people sat about eating chicken salad
with oil in it and boned turkey and cold
breasts of pheasants with dry champagne
He went into his room finally, and, heating
up little tin of water over the gas, took his
cup of boiling water. What
would Mrs Microbe say to yon scene of rev.
elry and cold turkey, to the piano trolling
out in the midnight air, to the gay voices, to
him listening and watching outside? His
went back to the pure if stifily
starched bosom of his family in their far off
home; he remembered the sedate order Of
the rules governing his always
tidy home, the regular hours, the days for
doing this and the days for doing that, the
absolute correctness of everything and every
body Life went on in q groove, and was mar
row, but pure and sweet and clean. He had the
best of it, he knew; over there was much tinsel
singing He liked that, too, OF he thought he
would if he might try it once. 1t was little
hard that oatmeal mush should be so taste
less and chicken salad so full of flavor. What
would Mrs. Microbe say TO a midnight sup
per in her leather hung dining rooms BY no
flight Of fancy could he think of her as
sweeping her hand around in a genial, gen.
eral way, and saying to all who might be
present: Come home to supper, all Of you.
We will find something TO eat, know"
Professor Microbe wrapped his dressing
gown around him and crept out upon the bal
cony How jolly they were across the way,
singing William Tell" After all, did his
theories and his oatmeal mush diet and his
laws of abstinence do him any more good
than William Tell" and boned turkeYl
Live as God Almighty intended you should.
Eat and drink and enjoy this beautiful I
world. 1t is good world, be good and happy
IN it. God hates sordid heart
The professor reached out to Nanette's
lovely rose vine, he plucked of every royal
sweet blossom and, like q boy throwing snow
balls, be flung them across the way upon the
balcony And the next day, in writing up
TENS for the paper, l made the following:
Professor Ebenezer Microbe, the distin
5uiSheL scientist. who has been spending
some time il the city, returned home this
morning, finding that the climate Of the .
outh did not agree with him. '-Catharine
Cole III New Orleans PIcayune.
Bellies Popularity.
r.z.-,s,,- MI, 10 <.r,,1a fr;o-J-, r--s.