Bismarck weekly tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, Dakota [N.D.]) 1884-1943, 1892-11-11
BROWN AS A PUNCTUATOR.
What Came of Trying New Rapid
Method of Learning the Rules.

Method of Learning the Rules.
Brown, my boy, there's nothing like it.
It's better than French in six weeks be-
cause you can work it into yourself in a
month, SO that you can hardly say or think
anything without following the rule. Take
this beautiful selection, which recalls our
schoolboy days: The boy stood on the
burning deck, comma whence all but he
had fled, semicolon; the flames that lit the
the battles wreck, comma, shone around
him DER the dead, period That's grand;
that's inspiring. You have all the beauty
and all the sentiment, and besides you
punctuate as you go along, and SO mingle
the artistic and the useful"
Brown was quite taken with this new
plan for learning how to punctuate prop
erly. He had often felt like brother to
the fellow who wrote a book without any
punctuation whatever, simply adding in
an appendix complete list of punctuation
marks, from which the reader could select
and punctuate as much or as little as he
pleased.
The first lesson went off swimmingly.
Brown so fell into the spirit of it that as
he walked .up the street afterward he
found himself soliloquizing: II wonder,
comma, if had better get that paregoric,
comma, for the baby, comma, before go
home, period. Perhaps, comma Then he
slipped up on piece of banana skin and
went down fiat with two exclamation
points and enough stars to equip several
issues of a "blanket sheet"
For the first time in his life he felt like
using the "dash" and also making dash
for the miscreant who threw that murder
Gus peel there. He lay on the pavement
long enough to denote several paragraphs,
then got up with difficulty and imped
down the street. But the magic power of
that first lesson was still upon him, and
meeting newsboy he began, "Well, COM
ma, my boy, comma, have you The Star?
interrogation point" The sharp eyed lit
tie rascal stared at him curiously, and then
replied: "Com-ah? Come off. When did
yer Escape from tn 'sylum?"
After punctuating the town generally
during the next two hours and getting a
crowd of small boys at his heels, whom he
escaped by seeking refuge in an empty
school building-a place the average boy
never enters if he can help it-he took
home to his dear family a somewhat bat
tered but still large supply of punctuation.
At q a. m. his wife nudged him, John
John, there are burglars in the house!''
"What-ah9 Burglars, burglars" Now
wide awake, he sprang to the floor ex-
claiming, dearest, comma will defend
you, comma, even with my hearts blood,
comma, if necessary, exclamation point" "
He then threw open the cham Der door right
in the face of two masked burglars, who
held pistols to his breast and demanded,
'Your money or your lifer'
With one whirl of his strong right arm
he dashed the pistols aside, two bullets
perforating the hall window instead of his
head, as was intended. With two more
whirls of that trusty arm he sent the
burglars, as surely and swiftly as one SEN
tence follows another in the mouth
of two-hundred-a-m minute speaker, out
through the window after the bullets,
remarking: "There, comma, now, comma,
you can hunt your bullets at your leisure,
period. Call again, comma, and I'll show
you how to punctuate better, comma, but
you can't put a period to my existence just
yet, period"
Then, rushing back to his wife, he ex-
claimed, "Joy of my life, exclamation
point, light of my eyes, more exclamation
points, come to my arms, period" They
fell, weeping, upon each others necks.
Stars and dashes come in here, denoting a
domestic scene too sacred for the eyes and
ears of the vulgar public. Washington