Further Foolishness, Stephen Leacock [pdf ebook reader .TXT] 📗
- Author: Stephen Leacock
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Late cables from England. Two more ships torpedoed. American passenger lost. Name of Roosevelt. Christian name not Theodore but William. Cabled expression of regret.
WEDNESDAY. Rose sad at heart. Did not work in garden. Tried to weed a little grass along the paths but simply couldn't. This is a cruel job. How was it that Roosevelt grew stout on it? His nature must be different from mine. What a miserable nature he must have.
Received delegations. From Kansas, on the prospect of the corn crop: they said the number of hogs in Kansas will double. Congratulated them. From Idaho, on the blight on the root crop: they say there will soon not be a hog left in Idaho. Expressed my sorrow. From Michigan, beet sugar growers urging a higher percentage of sugar in beets. Took firm stand: said I stand where I stood and I stood where I stand. They went away dazzled, delighted.
Mail and telegrams. British Admiralty. Torpid Incident. Send further samples. Fragment of valise, parts of cow-hide trunk (dead passenger's luggage) which, they say, could not have been made except in Nevada.
Cabled that the incident is closed and that I stand where I stood and that I am what I am. Situation in Washington relieved at once. General feeling that I shall not make war.
Second Cable from England. The Two New Cases. Claim both ships torpedoed. Offer proofs. Situation very grave. Feeling in Washington very tense. Roosevelt out with a signed statement, What will the President Do? Surely he knows what I will do.
Cables from Germany. Chancellor now positive as to Torpid. Sworn evidence that she was sunk by some one throwing a rock. Sample of rock to follow. Communication also from Germany regarding the New Cases. Draws attention to fact that all of the crews who were not drowned were saved. An important point. Assures this government that everything ascertainable will be ascertained, but that pending juridical verification any imperial exemplification must be held categorically allegorical. How well these Germans write!
THURSDAY. A dull morning. Up early and read Congressional Government. Breakfast. Prayers. We prayed for the United States, for the citizens, for the Congress (both houses, especially the Senate), and for the Cabinet. Is there any one else?
Trouble. Accident to naval flotilla en route to Piccolo Domingo. The new battleship the Woodrow has broken down. Fault in structure. Tried to go with both ends first. Appeared impossible. Went sideways a little and is sinking. Wireless from the barges the Wilson, the Thinker and others. They are standing by. They wire that they will continue to stand by. Why on earth do they do that? Shall cable them to act.
Feeling in Washington gloomy.
FRIDAY. Rose early and tried to sweep out the White House. Had little heart for it. The dust gathers in the corners. How did Roosevelt manage to keep it so clean? An idea! I must get a vacuum cleaner! But where can I get a vacuum? Took my head in my hands and thought: problem solved. Can get the vacuum all right.
Good news. Villa dead again. Feeling in Washington relieved.
Trouble. Ship torpedoed. News just came from the French Government. Full-rigged ship, the Ping-Yan, sailing out of Ping Pong, French Cochin China, and cleared for Hoo-Ra, Indo-Arabia. No American citizens on board, but one American citizen with ticket left behind on wharf at Ping Pong. Claims damages. Complicated case. Feeling in Washington much disturbed. Sterling exchange fell and wouldn't get up. French Admiralty urge treaty of 1778. German Chancellor admits torpedoing ship but denies that it was full-rigged. Captain of submarine drew picture of ship as it sank. His picture unlike any known ship of French navy.
SATURDAY. A day of trouble. Villa came to life and crossed the border. Our army looking for him in Mexico: inquiry by wire, are they authorised to come back? General Carranza asks leave to invade Canada. Piccolo Domingo expedition has failed. The Woodrow is still sinking. The President and the Thinker cable that they are still standing by and will continue to stand where they have stood. British Admiralty sending shipload of fragments. German Admiralty sending shipload of affidavits. Feeling in Washington depressed to the lowest depths. Sterling sinking. Marks falling. Exports dwindling.
An idea: Is this job worth while? I wonder if Billy Sunday would take it?
Spent the evening watering the crocuses. Whoever is here a year from now is welcome to them. They tell me that Hughes hates crocuses. Watered them very carefully.
SUNDAY. Good news! Just heard from Princeton University. I am to come back, and everything will be forgiven and forgotten.
Timid Thoughts on Timely Topics
XVI. Are the Rich Happy?
Let me admit at the outset that I write this essay without adequate material. I have never known, I have never seen, any rich people. Very often I have thought that I had found them. But it turned out that it was not so. They were not rich at all. They were quite poor. They were hard up. They were pushed for money. They didn't know where to turn for ten thousand dollars.
In all the cases that I have examined this same error has crept in. I had often imagined, from the fact of people keeping fifteen servants, that they were rich. I had supposed that because a woman rode down town in a limousine to buy a fifty-dollar hat, she must be well to do. Not at all. All these people turn out on examination to be not rich. They are cramped. They say it themselves. Pinched, I think, is the word they use. When I see a glittering group of eight people in a stage box at the opera, I know that they are all pinched. The fact that they ride home in a limousine has nothing to do with it.
A friend of mine who has ten thousand dollars a year told me the other day with a sigh that he found it quite impossible to keep up with the rich. On his income he couldn't do it. A family that I know who have twenty thousand a year have told me the same thing. They can't keep up with the rich. There is no use trying. A man that I respect very much who has an income of fifty thousand dollars a year from his law practice has told me with the greatest frankness that he finds it absolutely impossible to keep up with the rich. He says it is better to face the brutal fact of being poor. He says he can only give me a plain meal, what he calls a home dinner —it takes three men and two women to serve it—and he
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