The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1912-09-12
LANGUAGE, IN A MOTOR BOAT.

We are all aware that if our sons 90
upon the river where rude, rough men
run the motor boats which half the time
will not bulge, they must become used
to great deal of violent language We
know that next to the fellows who are
constantly in company of our noble
friend, the horse, the toughest of tongue
by all means are those who go in for
care-free life on the bounding bilow.
One would hate to have ones own boy so
much OF mollycoddle that when ex-
pressing his proper feelings he would
resort to such mere subterfuge profanity
as timorous editors exact from Ralph
Bergengren's otherwise admirable pi-
rates. One cannot but have hearty re-
spect for the college English teacher
who instructs his charges to damn freely
in their daily themes. [, too, have dip
ped my pen into the mucilage bottle.
have pounded out my own manuscripts
on the typewriter. Yet, on Juvenal's
principle of debet puero reverentia, |
was glad that my small son was not along
to hear that grizzled veteran carry on.
For ten uninterrupted minutes he pulled
up epithets and explosives to apply to
that mess of rotting junk, that diabolical
connection of an insane engine tinkerer' S
bunglng brutality. The boat herself?
No, she was all right-that is, her putrid
outside hull. She looked decent enough,
like many of her sex so far as externals
were concerned. But that engine and
the attachments! Every valve vile i'm
position! Every soldered joint sinful
sham! Every cylinder sink of iniquitous
perdition! AS for the owner, his en-
ployer, all the notifying fools in crea-
ton called him a gentleman and good fell
low, but
Yet nothing much was the matter, so
far as we could find, except that this
pale, sallow engineer had been left on the
boat Saturday afternoon with instruc-
tons to discover, if possible, why she had
broken down, and on meuding the trouble
to bring her back to the South Shore re-
sort from which the owner had tried to
make Maiden. 1t was now Tuesday
morning; the man had done little in the
meantime but tinker at the machinery,
H., must also have chewed some of the
cotton waste and rags with which the
hull was half filled. He had not seen his
family for several days, and thick stub
BILE was appearing on the part of his chin
which the razor usually kept pale. 1t
was all exasperating, no doubt. Still, as
lie Was undoubtedly pau loA LIS tllIe, DIS
philosophy counsels the wise men not tc
fret over trities, and as scientific man.
agement is rapidly discharging the irri
table and irascible, we could but fee
that this was an unpleasant character
from whom we should like to escape.
We did so as gracefully as possible
Hardly were we off down stream wher
we realized that an explosion had taker
place-not of the gasolene engine, but
another of the engineers. The mild
looking American had just discovered
that the doddering idiot whom we
brought down river had with him only
five gallons of gasolene. Five gallons te
feed mess of rotting junk like that! As
we'll try to take that boat to Hades as t.
bingham with five gallons of gasolene!
The newspapers that afternoon chron
icled no murder on the Mystic. We have
often wondered how the young man go
out of it alive.