The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1906-08-03
THAT AWFUL THEY SAY
From the Waxhington STAR.


cause, you know" the friend said to him,
this grouchiness OF yours is becoming a
habit. They say"
1t was at this instant that he leaped
upon his friend in a sudden access of fury,
spun him around, pinned him in a cor:er
of the room. and, thus holding him a wise
like clutch. eNuded the following:
They Saythats 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, p~estcred and bulldozed
by They Say.
mot that j care the leavings of an ONE
let souftie in the nethermost depths Of
Tartarus what They Say. What They Say
doesn't concern me any more than the boil
weevil concerns the Understanding Eski-
mo or than the dismissal order
concerns the clerk who's got the good eye
of a couple of senators who stand in. But,
all the same. They Say annoys and tam
talizes me like a bunch of %gloating house
tiles on a gummy Washington day in
August.
When I say They Say, L mean you.
You belong to the Universal Order of Car
rulous, Loquacious Gabberiferous They
Says, and I'm a-talking to you!
What in the eternal blazes difference
does 1T make to me, or to you, or to any
body else one-eighth of one degree re-
moved from a shell fish in mantality or a
U StslSc . sell -ICSDCCI WHAT lDcN Day.
""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 co~vetousness
and sloth and the devil and all combined?
III YOU don't know it, why don't you?
They Say hey? Well what if they
do? Did you ever know a member of the
Order of They Say to possess the brains
of a 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 p~oultice for the wounded
fifth rib of a potato bug? Were you ever
personally acquainted with a They Say
who wasn't himself mean enough to swipe
the rug out Of a ~Swampoodle baby car
riage in the dead of winter?
Ibid you ever meet up with a They
Say, male or female, who did not possess
the physiosnomical lineaments of a Sou
dan simian?
S They Say do they? Aren't you
aware of the fact that If YOU We're sew
enty-nine different kinds of a Sir alahad,
multiplied by forty-eight George w. Childs,
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 a perpetual
charter, issued on the first day of the Gre
alton of the Garden of Eden, and to en-
dure until the last faint echo of the crack
of doom, and that the They says are ire
sistible, incapable OF being e%Ntirpated or
deleted?
AN inasn1uch 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 1t! They Say? Who Says?
They Say is always anonymous, coll
%lectiye, vague, nebulous, and inevitably a
liar.
''They Say is always possessed of the
imagination of a hasheesh-eater and the
pestiferous clackiness of an unoiled
threshing machine N a hollow echoing wall
ley,
They Say is the dum-dum bullet of hui
They Say is the rock thrown in the
dark.
They Say is the intangible Malta crank
erlNg the heart of civilization; the Black
Hand that besm:rches the outer hide of
human sweetness.
They Say is the hooded cobra of HUI
man 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
women.
II never hear one of the They Says Civ
Ing the verbal office of his order that I
don't. in the ear of Imagination, detect the
yelping of graveyard hyenas in the dis
lance.
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 glances 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
bility of Wash.ngton, the chivalry of
King Arthur, the spirituality of St. Angus
line; the unselfshness of Damon and
Pyshias-if | had all of these things
aureole. dye s'pose for one-siNteenth part
Of a second that I'd be free from the on
Saws?
WHAT'S the nswer The answer. for
you and all of the rest Of the They Says.
Order of They Says and, if you've got a
knock coming. say it yourseif.Don't emit
an anonymous knock in the name of the
a knock in your midriff that has just nat
urally got to be left out. why, just skate
to the center. shy your hat on 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 1t. and in the name of
Says, NA = eie Ivy
Why, you're feeling knockish don't get
DSilliu l1e 1IeS SdS SCTeGll.
Claim the knock for your very own.
and stay with itstand by 1t!
Don't be a hiding lnocker! Be a per-
sonally-conducted knocker. and append
your own monaker and John Hancock to
every knock that you let slip!
IF you knock that you think you've got
coming Is so uncertain. so secondhand, so
nnauthoritative. SO univerifed, sonebulous
that you feel empted to. let IT out of your
carcass in the form of a They Say. lust
punish the flesh by keeping it back Of
your teeth altogether, and go out and get
mold of some kind of a knock that YOU
know all about at first hand and that you
IAN 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
mere IN listen to you, even if You hand
NE twenty thousand knocks for myselr
coming from you as yourself. But no more
They Says! You hear?"
The friend heard. The box-jawed. stealy-
eyed man released him firm his vise-ike
grasp, and when he sunddenly woke IN
With the morning sun streaming through
The windows. he found that he had become
tangled up with the bed clothes.
Keeping 1t Quiet.
Comedian AL TT Wilson to,l. +l,;. -oa,