The Morris County chronicle. [volume] (Morristown, N.J.) 1877-1915, 1901-03-15
MORRIS COUNTY CHRONICLE: FRIDAY, MARCH IS 1901

door. Smithson was passing and stop
ped to shake hands. Hello, old manp
said |. Delighted to see you,' when as
a matter of fact / was deuced sorry to
see him, because | owe him ten.
gave the counter squeeze and hur-
ried on, but before / got to the Office !
had logged it nine times.
what did jog it for, did you ask?
oh, trivialities, mere trivialities, but at
one of 'em. Whenever / opened nay
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 double
tally in assuring his wife she was look
ing remarkably well when she was
looking exactly like a scarecrow.
told another friend never laughed so
much in my life as had at something
or other, / don't remember now what,
and still another that hadn't slept
wink for three nights when had neu-
ralgia lately-all lies, bald lies, in spite
of their harmlessness.
'When / reached the office and look
ed at the dial, / was Mortified. Good
heavens! | said to myself. TT seems
to be physically impossible for me to
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
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 a Bingham umbrella, belongs to a
building and loan association and has
all the other marks of severe respecta-
bility. l had supposed him to be the
quintessence of cast iron veracity, but
when l sat down in cold blood to put
him on record / was astounded at the
bIase fashion With which he frivoled
with the truth. | pushed the button
on him Is times in 81 minutes; then he
got into whispered conversation with
caller, and ! lost the thread of his
remarks. But I am certain if l had
been in earshot the counter would have
had hard work keeping up with the
procession.
'gThat relieved my mind somewhat,
and later on, when | made a quiet test
of several of the other fellows in 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
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 10 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 effort, but the other
data has furnished me with abundant
food for thought. My brother-in-law,
by the way, insists that we would
make a 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 everything In
life would be little better than an an
archist. He would upset all establish
ed standards of value and make it nee
essary almost to recast the language.
Besides, nobody would believe him.
But my brother-in-law is doctor"
added the amateur cynic thoughtfully,
"and maybe that makes a difference"
New Orleans Times-Democrat.