The times., 1899-07-16
Minor Fiction.

! "Mr. Milo Bush and Other Worthless - by
Hayden Carruth, is collection of brief and
pointed anecdotes-they are hardly more
| told somewhat in the manner of Mark
Twain. There are twenty in all, and they
are nearly all amusing, though it must be
confessed that one will do well to take
them in homeopathic doses. II the book is
read through at a sitting, as can easily be
done, one becomes rather tired of the SOL
emnly humorous exaggeration and uni
| form absurdity of the tales. But read one
at a time, to the right audience, they
should prove a source of infinite amuse-
ment.
Most of these tales appeared in Harper S
Drawer and they all bear the marks of
New York authorship. There Is the atmos-
phere OF the elevated road and the daily
paper, the electric light and the yaude-
Vile stage, about even the stories dealing
with the country. They might also be used
by 'monologue artist" for the entertain
ment OF a roof-garden audience and this is
not intended for anything but a compli-
| ment.
"Greeleys Handwriting" is one of the
best. II is, as one might infer from the
title, story of the old Tribune office,
| and told at the expense of Greeley's we'll
known chirography. 1t begins with the
statement that the writer has never known
tramp printer old enough to have work
ed under Greeley who had not done so, and
1t ends with a speech in the old-time ed
itor's characteristic manner. 1t deals with
an attempted practical joke on a printer
named Larkway, who smoked a cob pipe
with the corn still on 1t, the stem of which
was made out a pigs tail. This printer
was the only man in the Office who could
set the copy turned in by Mr.. Greeley, and
his delight in the fact led to the attempted
! joke, which was made with the assistance
of two fowls, whose unique history is in
part as follows:
One day worshiper in Herkimer county sac
rifced on the Greeley altar two young roosters.
alive. They were Of a strain, originated by
the man, and he had named it the "Go-west''
breed. Mr.. Greeley was much interested in the
new fowls, and gave the man a good notice
in the agricultural department, and cooped
them under his desk bestowing upon them an old
straw hat for their brooding place, since they
were not large enough to roost. But
they had not been in the Office a fortnight be-
fore they developed trick which brought them
into disfavor. They learned to eat the paste
They would hop up on their owners desk, and
gorge themselves from the paste-pot as regu-
larly as he went out, seldom leaving enough to
stick 4 gumless postage stamp.
Ii was a favorite plan Of Greeleys to clip
an item from loathed contemporary, paste it
on the top of a sheet of copy paper, and then
proceed TO tear the unfortunate author of the
paragraph limb from limb. Several times, when
boiling with rage at something he had Just
clipped, ne started TO dab 1t on a piece Of
paper and found the paste-pot polished out like
lamp chimney, and those two roOsters
standing about in 4 calm attitude almost ready
! TO burst. He endured it a week for the sake
of the breed, but ii happened too often,
and Greeley was the one who burst He sent
for the foreman, and said to him:
do you see those two confounded young roos-
tersY They've eaten up my paste. They're full
of it. They're waiting for to get some
more. want you to take 'em upstairs, and
never let me see 'em again"
The foreman tucked a rooster under either
arm, and did he was told.
How these too enterprising fowls wrote
a Greeley editorial and how Larkway set
1t up is the story, and it is too good a story
for anyone to lose or spoil by premature
| reading.
Another good specimen of Mr.. Carruth's S
style is The Long Suffering Scandinav-
ian" a tale of a Swede who was the butt
Of all the practical iokers in town until
he came to the conclusion that he would
have a nice time with them in his own
way. Being large and muscular Swede,
he succeeded AS for the other people,
Mr.. Milo Bush says of them:
What become of the ledge and Joe? Young
feller, what become of the that went out TO
shake hands with the cyclonef
There are also sagas of one Goldstein
a Hebrew peddler who played a cruel joke
on a whole community of long suffering
Scandlnavians, and got out of their way
before they discovered It; OF a remarkable
fog in New York Harbor; of an unfortu-
nate town which was gradually and pain
fully wiped off the map, presumably be-
cause 1t had, and rejoiced in, the name
OF Blueblossom; of some remarkable de-
baters, and of flghting-co named Cen
eral Jackson and a horse named the Colo
| mel There are as many colonels, judges,
majors, and generals in this book as If IL
were product of the Kentucky bluegrass
| region. Altogether. Mr.. Carruth has got
ten together an entertaining collection of
| stories, and it is rather a pity that the