Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-04-14


of actual fact. The fragile. gossamer fab
rio with which this popular idea is envel-
oped floats away into atomic space when
the bright. warm sunlight of truth Is turned
upon the form which it shrouds. The aver
age professional joke writer is not always
joker nor a humorist to other men. The
product OF his brains is source of income
and maintenance, and when he jokes for
the benefit Of others he does for his own
pecuniary benefit through the columns OF
his paper.
There are many kinds of joke writer's,
and Washington has one who, in keeping
with his calling, resides In Alexandria. He
lives in that historic town mainly for the
reason that there is yet a dramatic, vaude-
vile, variety, comic opera or any other
histrionic organize ton to come to the capital
in which gag about the city where tour
lists visit the church Washington attended
Is not flung with catapultic force and demo-
uiacal fury at the heads of the helpless
audience. The mirthful comedian springs
this gag with a will and energy that be-
tokens d feeling that he is hitting the peo-
pie in a tender spot and it is a said but
truthful fact that the discharge of his
hoary-headed, attenuated, Senie paresis-
stricken skeleton of a joke generally pro-
duces a laugh. Whenever this particular
joke writer hears this ancient gag trotted
out it makes him think of home and
mother. If the comedians should vary their
humor once in while with Quantico. for
example, he would feel lonely and resent
the absence of the free advertising his
town receives
The Real Thing.
One morning during the recent cold snap
this particular Alexandria professional
joker hurried into his ragged dressing
gown. patched slippers and trousers and
being heavily in debt, the closing lines Of
Rudyard Kipling's famous poem, 1.-The Abb
sent-Minded Beggar," ran through his
hog fn he reaS hot tha nrd
occurs therein. He lives mostly credit,
and it Is cherished word with him:
Pass the hat for your credits sake and
pay-pay-pay.
He murnured this line over and over as
he looked dejectedly in the one good cor
ner of the cracked mirror in his dressing
case.
He saw reflected thin, poorly clad form,
pale. serious face drawn in deep lines of
care and colored a saffron hue from an
inactive liver.
He raised his transparent, trembling
hands. and. running them through the few
struggling hairs encircling his bald head,
he apologized to himself for hts hayward,
misspent life. for failing to amuse himself
while he had been trying to amuse others.
Here am l." he exclaimed. YEARLY,
cold and shivering. going to the cellar
for coal. My dear wife. whose literary
mind runs In a different channel from my
own. lies upstairs comfortably on the
couch reading Beautiful Geraldine or the
Factory Girl Who Shared a Millionaire
But with me it is joke-1oke-joke for nay
-pay-pay.
My children are In the nursery raising
Cain. My cook has gone to the grocery
There Is nothing to eat in the house The
kitchen fire won't burn. But II I become
an nt-minded literary beggar 1 will
develop into a beggar in truth, SO write
-write-write for pay-pay-pay
My publishers are incons1dera tely heart
less. l am expected to be in free-frorn
care. capering, blithesome. desperately gay
mood. and to turn In jokes always attuned
IN high C of humor If 1 don't do this. II
is no pay-pay-pay.
My personal friends look upon me as
harmless lunatic. who is wasting his life
ana ought to be In sanitarium. To them
can never say anything which is taken
seriously. They consider 1t their duty to
laugh at my serious remarks on the popu-
lar question of the day o. lack-a-day.
iack-a-day. lack-a-day.
Dukes sons, cooks sons millionaire
sons, any mothers son thinks he can make
puns and write jokes. So he can-from his
point of view; from the publishers. let him
ably 1t fails to buy pie-pie-pie.
IF do make other people laugh at
my Jokes, this" as he reached for a small
black bottle In the cupboard of his 1913 SO u
makes me SMILE" and he erinned as he
embarrassed this ancient charger of a Joke.
Always on the Lookout for Ideas.
our lives are tangle of incongruous
and antithetical contrasts. In every ma
per, magazine. book or remark turks the
hea-like. agile jokelet idea awaiting our
mighty intellect to fall upon him. Other
people enjoy reading the weekly and
monthly periodicals. but, alas, the Joke
writer sees 1t all only through the tense
OF humor. 1t is an all-absorbing, mind
shrivelfng deviation from ordinary thought
Everything must be funny to him.
1T wearies me to hear all this talk about
patying the 'absent-minded beggar' of
soldier There are others besides the mill
Iary martyr. The absent-minded, beggarly
Joke writer is the Tommy Atkins upon
slowed " w
He cannot get away from the .ioke idea.
On the street, at the last sad rites at
scenes where the 'devouring element PLAYS
the leading part. amid the softly falling
Makes is, Ok the beautiful snow where the
victim falls with the dull, sickening thud'
OF the reportorial pencil; where the 'beaut,-
fully fair girl and the smoothly shaven.
manly Gibsonesque man mingle in the
Whirins maze and shine In the 'glittering
glare Of the gas light at fashionable
Junction the foul fiend of the ubiquitous
Joke thought 'pursues' him with relentless
ferocity' and 'unyielding tenacity'
chaser % nr no th eseape, once i man becomes
a funny rheumatic twinge or an amusing
appendicitis twist. Even when he is eating
his meals 1t gives him greater indigestion
than those who read It."
His Merited Fate.
Concluding his soliloquy, the poor man
swallowed the contents of the small black
bottle. picked up the empty coal souttle
and started to descend the cellar stairs.
He slipped at the top and bumbed, bumped
to the bottom. Rising painfully, he said:
The man on the steps, like the Cossaek
on the steppes. sometimes gets there before
the scuttle."
Filling his coalhod, he YEARLY assembled
the stairs. On the top step he fell back
ward and broke his neck In the fall
As his eyes closed in his last slumber
and his form Strengthened out in its last
stretch. his lips naurmursd his last Joke:
IF had had a rubber neck this wouldn't
have happened"