The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1935-12-05
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE
IGNORAMUS CLUB
BY STEPHEN LEAcocK

/OU remember / told you, a lit
tie while back, about the Igno-
ramuS club Of which l am the
secretary and how the idea of
the club Is to get away from all the
fuss and worry of the world, and not
to know anything and not to care
anything about it. You remember that
/ said we don't know where Czecko-
slovakia is and we don't care. If l have
spelt 1t right, apologize. didn't mean
to.
We like to get away from all that
and play golf, and go trout fishing
and talk about back-lot gardening and
whether to tie tomatoes up on a stick
or let them run on the ground. These
are the real things in life. You get
a few members of our club into a keen
talk on tomatoes and you're hearing
something.
But, of course, we like in a way
to keep posted and we like to do good.
And when the idea came up that if we
held a lunch it might help to disarm
Europe, the members were all for it.
The proposal was that Dean Elderber-
ry Foible, one of our senior members
and Dean Of the college here (palm-
istry, l think, should read a paper
on disarmament and that would draw
good attendance especially if we had
fresh asparagus and lots of it.
Our members will go further for
fresh asparagus than anything else 3;
asparagus and cold salmon with a
mayonnais salad and with a clear soup
in front of it. and after it one of those
things-what do you call it, vol-o-vent?
anyway a German name. Some of the
committee thought it too light, that
the members would be too restless aft
er it and wouldn't listen; a steak and
kidney pie or cold lobster holds an
audience down far better They don't
wake up much till the end. 50 the up
shot was that McSorley, the presi-
dent, decided that we'd have the sal
mon and asparagus, with the steak
and kidney pie on the side: it would
boost the cost little but he said he
could make it up by using some of the
money that the club has raised for
the childrens seaside fund. 1t hadn't
gone as yet, and we could make it up
to the little tots, McSorley said, later
on and in other ways, perhaps at
Xmas. McSorley's crazy over chill
dren.
So we certainly had fine turnout.
McSorley had to hit the bell three or
four times before they would stop eat
ing. Even while the Dean was talking
some of them were still reaching out
for olives and things.
Dean Elderberry Foible makes a
fine appearance. He has frosty white
hair and a face as red and pink as an
apple and a healthy look, not like a
professor at all. The boys all say he
looks distinguished. SO he is. He writes
letters to people like MussOlini and
the Queen of Moravians and Winslow
Churchill. Mussolini answered one: I
think it was Mussolini. Anyway some
one did: it dosen't matter.
McSorley, when he announced that
Doctor Foible would talk on dlsarma-
ment, said he looked upon him as the
finest classical scholar in America. But
the Dean very modestly said on rising
that he must take exception to that /;
he was sure there must be at least
so classical scholars in America as
good as himself, or If so was an ex-
aggeration, at any rate dozen, or say
six, or If not six at least two or three.
Doctor Folble began by reading that
the problem of disarmament went back
to the Greeks and Romans and was
one of the chief causes Of the Phil
iponesian war, and that even before
the Greeks some of the greatest wars
of the old Babylonians were due to
disarmament.
At that point McSorley rose and
said he was sorry to interrupt the
dean but he didn't think that the club
wanted to go backwards: he doubted
whether any of the members knew
where Babylon was, apart from those
who had Travelled in Central America ::
and he said that the Greeks and Ro-
mans seemed pretty far away too.