Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1901-07-08
KEPT TALLY on FIBs.
THE ASTONISHING RESULT OF ONLY
ONE DAY OF COUNTING.

An Investigators Discovery of What
an Enormous Bouquet OF the Flow
ers of Fable Adorns the Daily
Speech of the Average Mortal.
do you know that the average Amer
lean is hopeless and incorrigible and
unmitigated liar:" said an amateur
cynic OF Baronne street. Il don't mean
lac lies viciously. but suave mendacity
glides Off the end of his tongue as cas-
lily as molasses flows from spigot on
a warm day in summer. He does it I'M
i consciously. habitually, automatically
Just as his lungs expand and his
heart palpitates and his hair grows.
without any special attention from the
rest of his system. He does IL because
he can't help 1t. The thing has become
Il second nature.
Il had all this brought home to me-"
continued the amateur cynic. by a
very simple little experiment which 1
tried on myself and a few others no
longer ago. than yesterday morning.
Did you ever see pocket counting ma
chine? Well, it's little device shaped
like watch. Whenever you press the
a
point. and IL registers in that way up
10 several thousand on the principle OF
IA cyclometer. They are used by any
body making long counts and are very
handy, because they never forget where
they leave OF.
But, TO come to the point, some
thing happened to remind me of our
national vice of untruthfulness as L
1 nm. 10. 4
| mined to keep tab on myself and as
certain. if possible. how many actual.
out and out lies 1 put into circulation
III the course of the day. 1 CHANGED to
have one of the little counting ma
chimes have just mentioned. so l slip
ped il into my pocket and started out.
The first lie 1 told was right at the
door. Smithson was passing and stop
/ ped to shake hands. Hello, old man"
said 1. Delighted to see you when as
| a matter of fact l was deuced sorry TO
see him, because l owe him ten.
gave the counter a squeeze and hur-
ried ON, but before got TO the office l
had logged II nine times.
What did l jog il for. did you ask ?
Oh, trivialities. mere trivialities, but at
the same time point blank lies. every
mouth out dropped some COMPOUNDED
hyperbole. told Jones the joke he in
sisted in springing ON me was the best
ever heard and then made a double
tally I'm assuring his wife she was look
ing remarkably well when she was
looking exactly like a scarecrow. 1
told another friend l never laughed so
much in my life as had at something |
or other, don't remember now what. !
and still another that l hadn't slept Il |
wink for three nights when 1 had neu- |
ralgia lately-all lies. bald lies, in spite !,
of their harmlessness.
when reached the office and look |
ed at the dial, l was Mortified. Good /
heavensr l said to myself. 1t seems |
to be physically impossible for me 10 /
speak the plain truth in the paltriest /
matters. I'll just remain perfectly |
quiet for half an hour and keep check |
on Boggs.'
''Boggs is our head bookkeeper and /
n pillar in one of the suburban church
es," continued the amateur cynic. He /
wears rubber overshoes in wet wealth |
err, cultivates sandy side whiSkers, car
ries gingham umbrella. belongs to 4
building and loan association and has |
all the other marks of severe respecta-
bility. / had supposed him to be the
Quintessence of cast iron .yeracity, but
when l sat down in coIdsblood to put
him on record l was astounded at the
blase fashion with which he frivoled
with the truth. l pushed the button
on him 10 times in % minutes: then he
got into a whispered conversation with
a caller, and 1 lost the thread of his
remarks. But l am certain if / had |
been in earshot the counter would have
had hard work keeping up with the
procession.
THAT relieved my mind somewhat,
and later on. when 1 made quiet test
of several of the other fellows i'm the
Office, / came to the conclusion that |
was no worse than the average, but the
average was pretty tough. AS far as
my Investigations went, the invoice
clerk held the record. He is a guileless
sort of chap, with modest manners and
a freckled nose, and never supposed
he bad any imagination concealed in
his peg topped Uranium. but he forced
me to push the indicator up exactly %
times in Is minutes. During the last |
part of the stretch, however. he was
trying to trade off a secondhand bicy-
Gle. and that naturally swelled the re-
turns.
"Of course l soon realized that the
idea of keeping count on my own men,
dacity was entirely impractical and
abandoned the fort, but the other
data has furp 'shed me with abundant
food for tb .ight. My brother-in-law,
by the WY. insists that we would |
make great mistake in trying to
weed these flowers of fable out of our
daily speech. He says we lie continu-
ally and Systematically because every
body else lies, and man who would
start out to tell the plain, cold. raw.
rectangular truth about everythiH in