Evening star., 1907-11-02
YOU KNOW GABBSKY?
4 RE you acquainted with Mr.. Gabb-


4 Perhaps you can't exactly recall
him by name. Consequently it may be
necessary to identify Mr.. Gabbsky to you
/ by the way he talks. Then, perhaps. you
/ may remember him.
! So. to explain how Mr Gabbsky talks.
| so that you may remember him as some
/ body you are acquainted with. You meet
Mr.. Gabbsky casually, and here. In es-
sance writing at random) Is about what
Mr.. Gabbsky says unto you:
! Hay-o there. mate. How's tricks? Got
to give 1t to you, you're looking pretty
fit Being good. hey? Well. that's the
/ answer. Nothing in this rum thing. and
j trotting around all night and such like.
For instance. look at Gitbye. Seen
him late,y7 Haven't, hey? Well, he's n
/ show, Looks like somebody about ntne
/ million years o!d-shakes Ike an old man
with the palsy or the ST Vitus' dance or
something. Sure he dos. Huh? Yep.
TIE old stuff and nothing else. Plain
/ booze. Got so he licks it up like a car
I riage dog hitting the water trough after
run under the buggy of twenty nine
miles on an August day. That's right
/ Never saw man toss so much red
booze into his works Gitbye has been
{ tit' Itrl .! tSt! OF 50. ana Ii getting MIN.
| Wonder he hasn't been got long ago.
! He's queer acting now. you know. He's
! Just about three jumps ahead of the
green zebras all the time-the old seeing
/ things state. you know.
| Cant figure out what the deuce ever
! got into Gitbye. SOM folks hint that
| it was his wife that got him winging
/ Member Gitbye's wife, don't you? Short
auhurn-hared woman with a shape and
/ snappy brown eyes-swellest kind of a
( vii S,lr,f
position and temper. Saw her pick up a
glass of water as If to chuck it into Git
hyes face one evening when | was at the
Gftbyes for dinner Huh! you can have
that kind,
STORY is that It was Mrs Gitbye's ex-
travasance mat got Gitbye to walloping
the old red-eye so hard. S'pose you've
seen Mrs Gitbye with her nifty scenery
on haven't YOU? Well she wears that
| kind of swell togs all the time and I
rufy stuff for just nothing. can't you.
ye-eh? If it doesn't lake three or four
, thousand a year for Gitbye to keep her
logged out Ike that. well, it doesn't cost
plus-kind O. feel sorry for Gitbye at
that. don't u?-took to the juice for
consola ton
"Oh. yes. they're living together right
enough. but they're hardly ever seen to-
gether. Y'see, she's sore on that rum
thing. They tall me that she hardly
so much as speaks to Gitbye. but I'll bet
she's there. right enough. when 1t comes
to macing him for the old mazoom. eh?
Say. isn't 1t Just like woman. to first
drive a man to drink by her burned ex-
travagance and foolishnzss. and then curl
mp on him because he does drink? But
you can gamble on 1t that she'll be taking
in plain sowing for a living yet Il she
think she ought to make some kind Of
an effort to straighton Gitbye out. even
If the old chap IS all but all in.
Hobo. well. we've got little bothers
Of our own: haven't we. pal? Pretty bum
stock market Just now. hey? Not a
chance on earth for anybody to beat it
from the outside. and yet
"Oh, say. there, talking about beating
things, have you heard about Hopalong?
They're saying that he has baen getting
over at Pimlico. Heard this morning
from fellow I know that Hopalong's in
all kinds OF bobbery about some short
time paper that he's got out-a whole
heap OF It, they tell me-and I wouldn't
be surprised any minute to hear that
HopaIong's gone bust Well. there's that
pony gag for you! That old gamell sure
get your shirt If you stay with 1t long
| enough. and I'm hearing that it's pretty
nigh got Hopalong's already.
Member how Hopalpng always had
the horse bug don't you? Well. I never
heard OF man having such case Of
dementia Americana Horsicus as Hopa-
longs had the last few years. Ye-eh
sure thing You ought to see him thumb
ing the dope. His office desk Is cluttered
ND with the old past performance sheets
He's got a bunch Of dope away back
for four and five years. and when you
don't catch him telephoning a bet to that
Baltimore pool room. why. you'll find
him sitting there at his desk in sort Of a
trance, fumbling over the charts. and OBJ
liviOus to everything.
Just you drop In on Hopalong to talk
bus ness and he's there with some of a
fool race track good thing that he wants
to toll you all about and you can't get him
to chatter about anything else. Yes, and
there's getting to be sort of wild bug
house look In his lamps, and I wouldn't
be startled to hear. any time. of his hav-
ing bunch of those brain storm things
"a few months ago I tried to kick in
Felt 1t to be my duty-and tell HOpalong
that he was giving himself the worst Of
It. But. Of course. he wouldn't see 1t the
right way. and he got real mussy about
1t, and talked like he figured that I was
ramming into his affairs, and he had the
nerve to say that he'd be wearing the
pigeon s-biood rubies when I was driving
a night-liner for a living and dining on
| hailstones
Isn't t the dickens how a fellows
whole make-upl change when rum or the
| horse bug sonnet hing like that gets
a-hoid of him? Just take Nudgeout for
another.
What, You haven't heard anything
about NudgeOut? Say, stop that living
in Anacostia! Go way,
"Wel1 you don't have to hear anything
about the poor old wreck. All you've got
to do Is to get one peek at him. Oh
you haven't seen him for year or So
oh? Well. then. of course. I don't feel
like SAYING anything about it-you'll meet
| him time enough. and then you'n notice
the horrible change In him. What Is It?
Oh. you can search ma. I don't know
Nobody knows exactly what 1t is. so far
as ! can make out-maybe it's morphia.
maybe It's hasheesh. maybe it's cocaine
maybe it's laudanum, maybe it's all Of
these together. But it's one or other of
those old dope things and you can sure
take 1t from me.
why say 1 thought everybody was
next to it that poor old Nudgeout had be-
come a dope tlend. If I hadn't thought
'or a certainty that you knew all about
it, of course. I wouldn't have said word.
Say. you member what an alert hust-
ling. active chap Nudcaout used to be?
Well. you ought to just see him now
that's all L:stless, glassy-eyed, brood
trance all the time. Never gets move
on, Hardly has a word to say to his
friends wien he meets up with EN- No
body can figure out just what 1t Is tat
he's np against. but ! imagine that maybe
it's laudanum. for his breath has alwa vs.
got a peculiar sort OF smell to 1t when