Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-10-28
THATAWFUL 'THEYSAY


The box-jawed, stsely-eyed man looked
grduchy. A friend asked him why. Be
cause, you know the friend said to him.
this grouchiness Of yours is becoming
habit. They Say
It was at this instant that he leaped upon
his friend In a sudden access of fury. spun
him around. pinned him in corner Of the
room. and. thus holding him a vise-iike
clutch. exuded the following:
"They Say--thats the answer. You've
hit. They Say!
'They Say Is what's the matter with me.
I'm getting tired Of being bounded. bully
ragged. hectored, pestered and bulldozed
by They Say.
mot that care the leavings of an omelet
soufie in the nethermost depths Of Tartar
US what They Say. What They Say doesn't
concern me any more than the boil weevii
concerns the blubber- hunting Eskimo or
than the summary dismissal order con-
Germs the clerk who's got the good eye OF
a couple of senators who stand in. But. ali
the same, They Say annoys and tantalizes
me like a bunch of gioating house flies on
gummy Washington day In August.
When say They Say, mean you. You
belong to the Universal Order of Garrulous,
Loquacious and Gabberiferous They Says,
and I'm a-talking to You!
What in the eternal blaZes difference
does it make to me, to you, or to any
body else one-eightieth of one degree re-
moved from a shell fish in mantality or
crustacean in self-respect what They Say:
Hey?
Don't you know that They Say has
caused more trouble and grief and human
misery generally since the beginning OF
the world than strong drink and Jealousy
and battle and murder and the plague and
fire and storm and envy and covetOusnesS
and sloth and the devil and all combined?
If you don't know it, why don't you?
"They Say, hey? Well. what if they do?
Did you ever know member of the Order
of They Say to possess the brains OF
young turkey in a rain storm? Did you
ever hear of one Of the They Says who had
enough of the milk of human kindness and
charity in his system to make a bread
poultice for the wounded fifth rib of a po
tato bug? Were you ever personally ac-
quatnted with a They Say who wasn't him.
self mean enough to swipe the rug out of
a Swampoodle baby carriage in the dead
of winter?
Did you ever meet up with They Say,
male or female, who did not possess the
physiognomical lineaments of Soudan-
csc Simian?
$50 They Say, do they? Aren't you
aware of the fact that If you were sew
enty- nine different kinds of Sir Galahad,
multiplied by forty eight George w. Chids,
and multiplied again by the main respec-
tive virtues of all of the greatest men and
the greatest women in all history. the They
Say bunch 'ud still go right on Saying?
Aren't you aware of the fact that the
Order of They Says has got perpetual
charter, issued on the first day Of the ere
alton of the Garden of Eden, and to en-
dure until the last faint echo OF the crach
of doom, and that the They Says are ire
sistibIe, incapable of being extirpated or
deleted?
And, inasmuch as the They Says have
always Said 1t, and will always go right
on Saying 1t till the last whistle has blown,
what's the use?
Let 'em Say IT. They Say? Who Says?
They Say is always anonymous, collec-
tive, vague. nebulous, and inevitably
liar
They Say is always possessed Of the
imagination of hasheesh-eater and the
pestiferouS clackineSS of an unoiled threSh-
ing machine in a hollow echoing valley.
''They Say Is the dunn bullet of hui
man speech.
"They Say is the rock thrown in the
dark
"They Say is the intangible Malta cranker-
ing the heart of civilization: the Black
Hand that besmirches the outer hide OF
human sweetness.
They Say is the hooded cobra of human
society.
"They Say is the sneak that sinks. up
behind its best friend and stabs him in
the back.
They Say is the hideous discordant buzz
that foully Stays the reputation of decent
men and destroys the good name of wo-
men.
Il never hear one of the They Says CIV
ing the verbal office of his order that L
don't, in the ear of the imagination, detect
the yelping of graveyard hyenas in the
distance.
They Say works while the rest of the
world sleeps. and They Say is so busy
that no man may know when he Is liable
to meet the askance and aslant chances Of
his They Say poisoned friends.
IF had the commiseration for human
woe Of that Siddartha who was Buddha,
the tenderness of Lincoln, the grave sta
bilty Of Washington, the chivalry of Chew
alier Bayard, the knightlness of King Ar
thur the spirituality of st. Augustine, the
unselishness of Damon and Pythias-if L
had all of these things wrapped around me
like a nimbus or an aureole, dye spose for
one-sfxteenth part of a second that I'd be
free from the onnery little underhand wal
lops of the They Says?
whats the answer? The answer for
you and all of the rest of the They Says,
Is to cash in and quit Withdraw from the
Order of They Says and, if you've got a
knock coming, say it yourself! Don't emit
an anonymous knock In the name of the
They Says, but, If you feel that you've got
a knock in your midriff that has just nat
urally got to be let out, why. just skate
to the center, shy your hat the carpet,
take a long breath to give your lungs free
play, and bawl the knock right out loud
with all of the power and strength that
you can put into it, and in the name of
you yourself-not in the name of the They
Says!
when you're feeling knockish don't get
behind the They Say screen!
Claim the knock for your very own and
stay with it-stand by 1T!
Don't be a hiding knocker! Be a per-
sonally-conducted knocker and append
your own monaker and John Hancock to
every knock that you let slip!
IF the knock that you think you've got
coming is so uncertain. so secondhand. so
unauthoritative, univerified, so nebulous
that you feel tempted to let it out of your
carcass in the form of They Say, just
punish the flesh by keeping 1t back of
your teeth altogether. and go out and get
hold of some kind of a knock that you
know all about at first hand and that you
can sling into the general knockfest as an
original package!
That's all! Sit right down and send in
your resignation from the Order of They
Says, and the next time you drop around
here I'll listen to you, even If you hand
me twenty thousand knocks for myself
coming from you as yourself But no more
They Says! You hear?
The friend heard. The box-jawed steely-
eyed man released him from his vise-nke
grasp, and when he suddenly woke up, with
the morning sun streaming through the
windows, he found that he had become tan