Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-12-17

to Lower Cedar point: and a large part
of the population pulls the bed clothes
over its head, on awakening on that MORN
ing, and wishes that it was dead and
buried and out of its MISUNDERSTANDING
a lot of the people who are scheduled
to begin their swear-of then and there
as soon as they awake. This is not pol
fic. 1t involves much sadness Ii Is apt
to put kink or dent in fiame-eyed reso-
luton and cripple. the same beyond i'm
mediate repair.
1t is therefore modestly suggested
mat January would be better day
Tor the swear-om proceedings; far bet
ter Tor many, many reasons. There
never is much doing worth speaking
of on January ,. The dog is pretty
dald on that day. Our last excuse for
under us: 10 longer are we able TO
blame things on the holidays. The
holidays have sunk hull-down on the
horizon, and left us marooned in a
go to work on January > That being
the case, why wouldn't il be better
for the swear-off folks to begin to take
their renunciatory medicine on that
day?
Do all of the swearers-off fall DOWN.
No, jokelet-izers, they do not \
great many Of them stick But the
ones that stick don't say anything
about it; in fact. few of this kind OF
stickers ever announce in advance
that they're going to join the swear
off caravan. 1t is probably for this
reason that they are stickers: because
they make up their minds to il quietly
and with a compression of the jaws.
and fight their little fight out alone.
without any trumpeting or music OF
the mellif1uous mouth organ
We have watched this thing carefully
for large number of years The
swearer-of who nudges under the
spotlight and eases the information to
everybody that he knows or can pick
acquaintance with that he is lust nat
chully through with the stuff forever
and some days; that he has IL licked to
a fragile; that he's had his'n. and is
done finished; that all of the kings
horses and all of the kings men
couldn't rope and throw i'm and bam-
boo any more of it into him; this is
the fellow whom We watch when I'VE
desire to pick up a scientific under
standing of the wabbles
For, you see, he is the kind of swearer-
OF who loves the ornamentation and the
trliis and the trumpery without any re-
lauon to the main essence of the thing.
He's whats-the-use person: inevitably
ne begins to ask that little trenchant
question sooner or later after he's nudged
up and down the wide lanes and told us
y
his lncisors into the stuff again long
his haid is hot; that he knows ''suffi-
cheney by its first name, as Wei rs he
knows the date of his birth; that me has
not only climbed on board the wagon, but
settled into the whip-socket and had HIM
self glued there for the balance of all
time, and then a few extra minutes tossed
in to make up the measure.
how r<.i,.a
gets a certificate of membership in the
Stickers Association.
It's the hT, quiet chap who just
nachully stops. after swearing off i'm the
deep, dark lonesomeness of his own buzz
zom. who really rides all around the track
on the aqua vehicle. He doesn't tell you
that he's sworn off. In fact. the probable
ity is that you don't really know that
there ever has been any pressing occasion
for him to do anything SO eventful and
heroic as to swear off. But he knows
that he has sworn of. And he is the
only one who needs TO know it. When
YOU or ANYBODY else meets up with him
at the place where it's dished up he
lust sort o. shakes his head and requests
the young man in the white coat to sling
out something non-seethfng. Nothing
whatever about the swear-off. He let's
the rest of the buyers dredge into the
yari-hued variants of the vacilfatory var
nishes Bat he's through.
After all, swearing off was never meant
to be a public ceremony. It's silent and
a peculiarly private rite!
CLARENCE L. CULLEN