The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-12-20
IT'S THE OPEN SEASON
 ON DINNER SPEECHES"
By IRWIN s. COBB.

"Its the open season on after-dinner speakers, all right" said the Hotel Clerk to his friend, the House Detective.
 'eWot makes you think so?" said the House Detective.
 Look for yourself" said the Hotel Clerk
 Across the be-gilt lobby of the Hotel St Reckless moved a struggling procession of gentlemen in dinner coats, all headed for the elevators running to the banquet floor. It was easy for the Hotel Clerk s practced eye to pick out certain familiar types There was the toastmaster, bur- dened with responsibilities and a quantity of typewriter manuscript. There was one professional after-dinner humorist the fat bubbly kind, who smiled broadly and walked with waddling steps. And there was another professional humorist the thin, solemn kind that thinks his stuff goes better if he looks like an undertak- CTS assistant. There was a guest of hon. or, evidently culled from some foreign consulate, a medalled gentleman so en- shrouded in an impenetrable morass of whiskers as to suggest cloth-bound copy of "Aone in the Jungle" There were several of those singular gentlemen who invariably wear an expression of intense unhappiness when waltzing with lady CT going to a dinner; and there were any number of iourneymen silver -polishers glass cleaners and table-fnishers, such as are to be found at any large public dinner, equipped with a dress suit. deep seated appetite and the car fare home
 s'I can always tell when tho gladsome Yuletide is at hand" resumed tho Hotel Clerk, after the elevators had aw widowed LID the last of the dinner-eoaae: crew .'The cotton batting whislSers Of an assist ant Bible class teacher who acting as Santa Claus at the Sunday school -hflst- mas tree entertainment, catch ire f 'om a wax candle and are burned to the roots The millionaires child is afraid he won't get everything for Christmas and is un- happy, and the poor child wonders II he Il get anything at all and is happy in the hope. The economical wife who fell for that helpful and instructive article by Aunt Prudence Prunes in the holiday number of the Lady's Homely Journal dssued September 1,) entitled, How Any one With a Delft Hand and Weak Mind Can Make Fifteen Tasteful Gifts Out of Fifteen Gents Worth of German Worsted in Fifteen Ninutes' emerges with a scream of despair from a great mass of embroidered ear muffs that look like bed room slippers and bedroom slippers that look like ear muffs and hand-worked tid- ies that don't look like anything at all and joins the endless caravan that moves on- ward. at this season toward that bourne from which no traveller returneth With any cash in hand, meaning by that, the shopping district The mail carrier glots over the express wagon hand, thereby getting even with the express wagon hand for laughing at him last St. Valen- tines day. The souvenir post card gives way temporarily to frosted card show ing a church graveyard during heavy snow storm with the words Compliments of the Season across the top. There's a smell in the air of holly berries and green spruce and hot whisky toddes and every toy shop window is a poor ehild's idea or what heaven must be like.
 Sure signs of Christmas, all of them, hut one of the surest is the distressful siqb+ which we witnessed here just minute ago. There are some men that go to a dinner every chance they get They're the hopeless incurables. who are divided into two classes, speakers who want to let something out of their sys- tems but can't afford to hire hail. and eaters, who want to put something ln. Then there are those chronic sufferers 1bo be1ong to several Greek letter soci- cites and state clubs and college fraterni- ties and associations of wholesale paint dealers and the like of that, and only go to dinners 12 or 15 times a winter. And finally there are the large and growing class that are only overtaken with the disease in it's most serious form around Christmas time and spend the festal sea- son sitting up awake at nights, when they ought to be asleep, and sitting up asleep in the daytime when they ought to be awake
 .eWhy do they do it, Larry? You can search me. I haven't a clew concealed about me anywhere. Some day some body that's wiser than I am will arise and explain why a grown man will pay s5 for a GD-cent table d'hote feed, with the added privilege of sticking around until 3:$ a. m, and hearing eight or ten discourses by lot of detached fossils and escaped human stalagmites from the Cave of the Winds
 Anyway the things that we call amuse- ments are mainly painful in the extreme. Take picnics. for example. Did you ever see anybody over the age of that really enjoyed a picnic? You did not, and neither did anyone else Take an excur- sion. especially in midsummer, when there hasn't been any rain in weeks and the landscape pours into the car windows in a molecular form accompanied by hay fever germs and sand flies. On second thought don't take an excursion. l wouldn't have you punished so. The greatest amusement I could conceive of would would be taking the rest cure, but