Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-09-13
On the Spur Of
the Moment
THE DIARY OF A BoNEHEAD
BY ROY MoULTON.
Written Exclusively for Evening stss.

THE DIARY OF BoSEHEAD
Ny neighbor is one of those motor
boat experts who do not know the
difference between the eccentric and
the ashpan. He knows more about
motorboats than that Oscar Under
wood knows about agate and zinc,
when he is conversing with you in
the safety and privacy OF your own
house, far from the more or less
raging main. Once in the boat ne
becomes the rankest tyro that motor
boatdom ever knew and motorboats
dom has known a few.
I had heard nothing but motorbeaH
out of my neighbor all spring and
early summer The things he told
me about gasoline, engines, horse
power and wind resistance was suffi-i
cient to have entitled him TO the
Nobel peace prize for motorboatcraft
If there is any such prize. I heard
motorboat over the back fence wf1ii.s
we were hoeing our gardens and
motorboat over the front hedge while
4 we were moving our lawns. Yester-
day he got me into the boat. Some
thing told me to stay at home and
weed the onions. Perhaps 1t was the
subconscious mind or the sixth sense
or the fourth dimension. Anyhow II
gave me the best bunch I have had
in nine years.
Everything that could have hap
pened to a motorboat IN five years
happened TO that one before we had
proceeded more than two miles out
in the lake. According to my neigh
boris stories, nothing had ever hap
pened TO 1t before, but the most
| a ri f<sf
| hoped for more to happen this time.
! My neighbor, with his head soTae-
! where under the engine and his feet
! hanging over the side OF the boat
and occasionally dipping into the
/ water when there was a swell, used
language that Uncle Noah Webster
could not have put into his book and
| got it through the mails
] think that the only thing that
didn't go wrong about the boat was
the flagstaff. 1t seemed TO woriz
beautifully all the time that we WE'RE
out. The differential crashed through
! the windshield, the carburetor blew
up and smashed the eccentric, the
differential got foul of the oiIing sys-
/ tenn and the bobandfetchit caught on
the geewhilliker and twisted the drive
shaft off from the propeller. Doubt
4 less other things happened. but these
were things which would linger IN
/ the memory of an amateur like my
self. This was at 10 o'clock IN the
morning. AT 10 o'clock at night we
were picked up by a fisherman after
we had drifted out in the lake until
the city lights twinkled like distant
stars.
A man with five children, a fireless
cooker and a photograph depending
upon him for support should keep
out of motorboats and not attempt to
tamper with any sort of machinery
more complicated than lawn mower
90
ACCORDING TO UNCLE ABNEH.
l have heered of many economical
people, but I think that woman
that borrows her neighbours rat is
! goin' it a little too strong.
! hate post mortem conversa-
tionalist. one of them fellers that
comes around after you are married
! and asks you right IN front of your
wife if you don't remember this and
that which happened to you ten years
I before.
A 81 mewl kin kick just as hard as
a $17 one, although he may not be SO
beauteous or fair TO see. l have also
seen a Teller with 50 suit that had
more money in the bank than the
Teller that paid $50 for his'n. So YOU
can't always tell.
The hippopotamus is one of tbs
+ most graceful for the aniraile king
dom and has got smile that kin
take in a burro and couple of mus
, tang ponies. He has an important
| mission in this world and that Is 10
be shot. He amt no good before he
is shot and he hain't no good after
he is shot exceptin' to make rubber
I boots out'n. Nature surely played
an awful joke on the hippopotamus.