Love Conquers All Read online

  SIXTH INNING: Thurston called out to Hasty not to let them fool him. Wicker said that where Hasty got fooled in the first place was when he let them tell him he could play baseball. Unknown man said that he was “too Hasty,” and laughed very hard. Thurston said that Hasty was a better pitcher than Mays, when he was in form. Unknown man said “Eah?” and laughed very hard again. Wicker asked how many times in seven years Hasty was in form and Thurston replied: “Often enough for you.” Unknown man said that what Hasty needed was some hasty-pudding, and laughed so hard that his friend had to take him out.

  Thibbets sharpened his pencil.

  SEVENTH INNING: Libby called “Everybody up!” as if he had just originated the idea, and seemed proudly pleased when everyone stood up. Taussig threw money to the boy for a bag of peanuts who tossed the bag to Levy who kept it. Taussig to boy to Levy.

  Scanlon yelled to Ruth to come through with a homer. Ruth knocked a single and Scanlon yelled “Atta-boy, Babe! All-er way ’round! All-er way round, Babe!” Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait which were the Clevelands. Mr. Whitebait said very quietly that the Clevelands weren’t playing today, just New York and Philadelphia and that only two teams could play the game at the same time, that perhaps next year they would have it so that Cleveland and Philadelphia could both play New York at once but the rules would have to be changed first. Mrs. Whitebait said that he didn’t have to be so nasty about is. Mr. W. said My God, who’s being nasty? Mrs. W. said that the only reason she came up with him anyway to see the Giants play was because then she knew that he wasn’t off with a lot of bootleggers. Mr. W. said that it wasn’t the Giants but the Yankees that she was watching and where did she get that bootlegger stuff. Mrs. W. said never mind where she got it. NO RUNS.

  EIGHTH INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Litner got up and went home. Scanlon yelled to Ruth to end up the game with a homer. Ruth singled. Scanlon yelled “Atta-Babe!” and went home.

  NINTH INNING: Stevens began figuring up the players’ batting averages for the season thus far. Wicker called over to Thurston and asked him how Mr. Hasty was now. Thurston said “That’s all right how he is.” Mrs. Whitebait said that she intended to go to her sister’s for dinner and that Mr. Whitebait could do as he liked. Mr. Whitebait told her to bet that he would do just that. Thibbets broke his pencil.

  Score: New York 11. Philadelphia 1.

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  Mid-Winter Sports

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  These are melancholy days for the newspaper sporting-writers. The complaints are all in from old grads of Miami who feel that there weren’t enough Miami men on the All-American football team, and it is too early to begin writing about the baseball training camps. Once in a while some lady swimmer goes around a tank three hundred times, or the holder of the Class B squash championship “meets all-comers in court tilt,” but aside from that, the sporting world is buried with the nuts for the winter.

  Since sporting-writers must live, why not introduce a few items of general interest into their columns, accounts of the numerous contests of speed and endurance which take place during the winter months in the homes of our citizenry? For instance:

  The nightly races between Mr. and Mrs. Theodore M. Twamly, to see who can get into bed first, leaving the opening of the windows and putting out of the light for the loser, was won last night for the first time this winter by Mr. Twamly. Strategy entered largely into the victory, Mr. Twamly getting into bed with most of his clothes on.

  An interesting exhibition of endurance was given by Martin W. Lasbert at his home last evening when he covered the distance between the cold-water tap in his bathroom to the bedside of his young daughter, Mertice, eighteen times in three hours, this being the number of her demands for water to drink. When interviewed after the eighteenth lap, Mr. Lasbert said: “I wouldn’t do it another time, not if the child were parching.” Shortly after that he made his nineteenth trip.

  As was exclusively predicted in these columns yesterday and in accordance with all the dope, Chester H. Flerlie suffered his sixtieth consecutive defeat last evening at the hands of the American Radiator Company, the builders of his furnace. With all respect for Mr. Flerlie’s pluck in attempting, night after night, to dislodge clinkers caught in the grate, it must be admitted, even by his host of friends, that he might much better be engaged in some gainful occupation. The grate tackled by the doughty challenger last night was one of the fine-tooth comb variety (the “Non-Sifto” No. 114863), in which the clinker is caught by a patent clutch and held securely until the wrecking-crew arrives. At the end of the bout Mr. Flerlie was led away to his dressing room, suffering from lacerated hands and internal injuries. “I’m through,” was his only comment.

  This morning’s winners in the Lymedale commuters’ contest for seats on the shady side of the car on the 8:28 were L.Y. Irman, Sydney M. Gissith, John F. Nothman and Louis Leque. All the other seats were won by commuters from Loose Valley, the next station above Lymedale. In trying to scramble up the car-steps in advance of lady passengers, Merton Steef had his right shin badly skinned and hit his jaw on the bottom step. Time was not called while his injuries were being looked after.

  Before an enthusiastic and notable gathering, young Lester J. Dimmik, age three, put to rout his younger brother, Carl Withney Dimmik, Jr., age two, in their matutinal contest to see which can dispose of his Wheatena first. In the early stages of the match, it began to look as if the bantamweight would win in a walk, owing to his trick of throwing spoonfuls of the breakfast food over his shoulder and under the tray of his high-chair. The referees soon put a stop to this, however, and specified that the Wheatena must be placed in the mouth. This cramped Dimmick Junior’s form and it soon became impossible for him to locate his mouth at all. At this point, young Lester took the lead, which he maintained until he crossed the line an easy winner. As a reward he was relieved of the necessity of eating another dish of Wheatena.

  Stephen L. Agnew was the lucky guest in the home of Orrin F. McNeal this week-end, beating out Lee Stable for first chance at the bath-tub on Sunday morning. Both contestants came out of their bed rooms at the same time, but Agnew’s room being nearer the bathroom, he made the distance down the hall in two seconds quicker time than his somewhat heavier opponent, and was further aided by the breaks of the game when Stable dropped his sponge half-way down the straightaway. Agnew’s time in the bathroom was 1 hr. and 25 minutes.

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  Reading the Funnies Aloud

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  One of the minor enjoyable features of having children is the necessity of reading aloud to them the colored comic sections in the Sunday papers.

  And no matter how good your intentions may have been at first to keep the things out of the house (the comic sections, not the children) sooner or later there comes a Sunday when you find that your little boy has, in some underground fashion, learned of the raucous existence of Simon Simp or the Breakback Babies, and is demanding the current installment with a fervor which will not be denied.

  Sunday morning in our house has now become a time for low subterfuge on the part of Doris and me in our attempts to be somewhere else when Junior appears dragging the “funnies” (a loathsome term in itself) to be read to him. I make believe that the furnace looks as if it might fall apart at any minute if it is not watched closely, and Doris calls from upstairs that she may be some time over the weekly accounts.

  But sooner or later Junior ferrets one of us out and presents himself beaming. “Now will you read me the ‘funnies’?” is the dread sentence which opens the siege. It then becomes a rather ill-natured contest between Doris and me to see which can pick the more bearable pages to read, leaving the interminable ones, containing great balloons pregnant with words, for the other.

  I usually find that Doris has read the Briggs page to Junior before I get downstairs, the Briggs page (and possibly the drawings of Voight’s Lester De Pester) being
the only department that an adult mind can dwell on and keep its self-respect. “Now I will read you Briggs,” says Doris with the air of an indulgent parent, but settling down with great relish to the task, “and Daddy will read you the others.”

  Having been stuck for over a year with “the others” I have now reached a stage where I utilize a sort of second sight in the reading whereby the words are seen and pronounced without ever registering on my brain at all. And, as I sit with Junior impassive on my lap (just why children should so frantically seek to have the “funnies” read to them is a mystery, for they never by any chance seem to derive the slightest emotional pleasure from the recital but sit in stony silence as if they rather disapproved of the whole thing after all) I have evolved a system which enables me to carry on a little constructive thinking while reading aloud, thereby keeping the time from being entirely wasted. Heaven knows we get little enough opportunity to sit down and think things out in this busy work-a-day world, so that this little period of mental freedom is in the nature of a godsend. Thus:

  What Is Being Read Aloud

  “Here he says ‘Gee but this is tough luck a new automobile an’ no place to go’ and the dog is saying ‘It ain’t so tough at that’. Then here in the next picture the old man says: Percy ain’t in my class as a chauffeur, he ain’t as fearless as me’ and this one is saying ‘Hello there, that looks like the old tin Lizzie that I gave to the General last year I guess I’ll take a peek and see what’s up’ ‘Well what are you doing hanging around here, what do you think this is a hotel?’ ‘Say where do you get that stuff you ain’t no justice of the peace you know’ ‘Wow! Let me out let me out, I say’ ‘I’ll show you biff biff wham zowie!’ etc. etc.”

  Concurrent Thinking

  “Here I am in the thirties and it is high time that I made something of myself. Is my job as good as I deserve? By studying nights I might fit myself for a better position in the foreign exchange department, but that would mean an outlay of money. Furthermore, is it, on the whole, wise to attempt to hurry the workings of Fate? Is not perhaps the determinist right who says that what we are and what we ever can be is already written in the books, that we can not alter the workings of Destiny one iota? This theory is, of course, tenable, but, on the whole, it seems to me that if I were to take the matter into my own hands, etc. etc.”

  And then, when the last pot of boiling water has been upset over the last grandfather’s back, and Junior has slid down from your lap as near satisfied as he ever will be, you have ten or fifteen minutes of constructive thinking behind you, which, if practiced every Sunday, will make you President of the company within a few years.

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  Opera Synopses

  Some Sample Outlines

  of Grand Opera Plots

  for Home Study.

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  I – DIE MEISTER-GENOSSENSCHAFT

  SCENE: The Forests of Germany.

  TIME: Antiquity

  CAST:

  Strudel,

  God of Rain Basso

  Schmalz,

  God of Slight Drizzle Tenor

  Immerglück,

  Goddess of the Six Primary Colors Soprano

  Ludwig Das Eiweiss,

  the Knight of the Iron Duck Baritone

  The Woodpecker Soprano

  ARGUMENT

  The basis of “Die Meister-Genossenschaft” is an old legend of Germany which tells how the Whale got his Stomach.

  ACT 1

  The Rhine at Low Tide Just Below Weldschnoffen. – Immerglück has grown weary of always sitting on the same rock with the same fishes swimming by every day, and sends for Schwül to suggest something to do. Schwül asks her how she would like to have pass before her all the wonders of the world fashioned by the hand of man. She says, rotten. He then suggests that Ringblattz, son of Pflucht, be made to appear before her and fight a mortal combat with the Iron Duck. This pleases Immerglück and she summons to her the four dwarfs: Hot Water, Cold Water, Cool, and Cloudy. She bids them bring Ringblattz to her. They refuse, because Pflucht has at one time rescued them from being buried alive by acorns, and, in a rage, Immerglück strikes them all dead with a thunderbolt.

  ACT 2

  A Mountain Pass. – Repenting of her deed, Immerglück has sought advice of the giants, Offen and Besitz, and they tell her that she must procure the magic zither which confers upon its owner the power to go to sleep while apparently carrying on a conversation. This magic zither has been hidden for three hundred centuries in an old bureau drawer, guarded by the Iron Duck, and, although many have attempted to rescue it, all have died of a strange ailment just as success was within their grasp.

  But Immerglück calls to her side Dampfboot, the tinsmith of the gods, and bids him make for her a tarnhelm or invisible cap which will enable her to talk to people without their understanding a word she says. For a dollar and a half extra Dampfboot throws in a magic ring which renders its wearer insensible. Thus armed, Immerglück starts out for Walhalla, humming to herself.

  ACT 3

  The Forest Before the Iron Duck’s Bureau Drawer. – Merglitz, who has up till this time held his peace, now descends from a balloon and demands the release of Betty. It has been the will of Wotan that Merglitz and Betty should meet on earth and hate each other like poison, but Zweiback, the druggist of the gods, has disobeyed and concocted a love-potion which has rendered the young couple very unpleasant company. Wotan, enraged, destroys them with a protracted heat spell.

  Encouraged by this sudden turn of affairs, Immerglück comes to earth in a boat drawn by four white Holsteins, and, seated alone on a rock, remembers aloud to herself the days when she was a girl. Pilgrims from Augenblick, on their way to worship at the shrine of Schmürr, hear the sound of reminiscence coming from the rock and stop in their march to sing a hymn of praise for the drying up of the crops. They do not recognize Immerglück, as she has her hair done differently, and think that she is a beggar girl selling pencils.

  In the meantime, Ragel, the papercutter of the gods, has fashioned himself a sword on the forge of Schmalz, and has called the weapon “Assistance-in-Emergency.” Armed with “Assistance-in-Emergency” he comes to earth, determined to slay the Iron Duck and carry off the beautiful Irma.

  But Frimsel overhears the plan and has a drink brewed which is given to Ragel in a golden goblet and which, when drunk, makes him forget his past and causes him to believe that he is Schnorr, the God of Fun. While laboring under this spell, Ragel has a funeral pyre built on the summit of a high mountain and, after lighting it, climbs on top of it with a mandolin which he plays until he is consumed.

  Immerglück never marries.

  II – IL MINNESTRONE

  (PEASANT LOVE)

  SCENE: Venice and Old Point Comfort.

  TIME: Early 16th Century.

  CAST:

  Alfonso,

  Duke of Minnestrone Baritone

  Partola,

  a Peasant Girl Soprano

  Cleanso,

  Young Nobleman of Venice Tenor

  Turino,

  Young Nobleman Tenor

  Bombo,

  Young Nobleman Basso

  Ludovico,

  Assassin in the service of

  Cafeteria Rusticana Basso

  Astolfo,

  Assassin Methodist

  Townspeople, Cabbies and Sparrows

  ARGUMENT

  “Il Minnestrone” is an allegory of the two sides of a man’s nature (good and bad), ending at last in an awfully comical mess with everyone dead.

  ACT 1

  A Public Square, Ferrara. – During a peasant festival held to celebrate the sixth consecutive day of rain, Rudolpho, a young nobleman, sees Lilliano, daughter of the village bell-ringer, dancing along throwing artificial roses at herself. He asks of his secretary who the young woman is, and his secretary, in order to confuse Rudolpho and thereby win the hand of his ward, tells him that it is his (Rudolpho’s) own mother,
disguised for the festival. Rudolpho is astounded. He orders her arrest.

  ACT 2

  Banquet Hall in Gorgio’s Palace. – Lilliano has not forgotten Breda, her old nurse, in spite of her troubles, and determines to avenge herself for the many insults she received in her youth by poisoning her (Breda). She therefore invites the old nurse to a banquet and poisons her. Presently a knock is heard. It is Ugolfo. He has come to carry away the body of Michelo and to leave an extra quart of pasteurized. Lilliano tells him that she no longer loves him, at which he goes away, dragging his feet sulkily.

  ACT 3

  In Front of Emilo’s House. – Still thinking of the old man’s curse, Borsa has an interview with Cleanso, believing him to be the Duke’s wife. He tells him things can’t go on as they are, and Cleanso stabs him. Just at this moment Betty comes rushing in from school and falls in a faint. Her worst fears have been realized. She has been insulted by Sigmundo, and presently dies of old age. In a fury, Ugolfo rushes out to kill Sigmundo and, as he does so, the dying Rosenblatt rises on one elbow and curses his mother.

  III – LUCY DE LIMA

  SCENE: Wales.

  TIME: 1700 (Greenwich).

  CAST:

  William Wont,

  Lord of Glennnn Basso

  Lucy Wagstaff,

  his daughter Soprano

  Bertram,

  her lover Tenor

  Lord Roger,

  friend of Bertram. Soprano