William J. Kountz

“ You may have arrived in a cab. Wonderful what a noise one small cab can make in the middle of the night. Well, the next thing is your physical condition. Your liver must be got going. Would you rather drink a cold, sparkling, pleasant- tasting R—R—S— that will produce instant action upon the liver? or would you prefer a water that is warm and sickening, tastes like an Italian tenement looks, and half the time won't stay down? Many a good fellow has his own troubles in the morning trying to find something that will stick. ”

“ Bud gave us a lot of hot air about his mother's cousin standing fifteen balls in the New York Four, and how that made him a nonresident member, and if we did just as he said, he would put us in right. He told us that there were thousands of people right in New York City, any one of whom would give a cool million for our opportunity. Johnny immediately began to figure, on how he would treat certain people over in Pittsburg who had given him the eye in bygone days; and I got so struck on myself that I cut the head waiter dead, although I had known him intimately for years. ”

“ I then walked all the way down to the hotel, alone and hungry. In my whole life I never met such a quarrelsome lot of people. You know yourself, Jim, that any one who can guess when a Dill pickle is going to squirt is entitled to the barrel of flour, or the gold-plated oil stove; and as far as that ninety is concerned, I suppose I went in front of the City Hall and presented it to somebody. I'll bet, all told, I've been in a hundred scraps in New York, and have never won a battle. I'll win out yet, if I have to go out and beat up a poor old apple-woman. ”

“ Jim, I didn't get that one myself the first time I heard it. Every time the general gets lit up, he places his arm around your shoulder, puts his face close to yours, blows ashes in your eyes, and tells you confidentially, so that every one in Texas can hear him, that he knew your father when the seat of his trousers was ragged, and he didn't have one dollar to rub against another. I don't mind that so much, but every time he comes to a word with the letter P in it, he spits all over a fellow. ”

“ If some guy cuts in on your steady, you are going out to her home, and you are going to call her fine and plenty, aren't you? And unless she promises to bump the other fellow, you are going to leave her in a rage, aren't you? Now, if you go back without being sent for, you're it.
Jim, if you can you had better wait for her to break the ice. If you don't, from that time on she will make you look like a white chip. A woman is like one of the big trusts. The instant she acquires a controlling interest in you she becomes a regular ring-master. ”

“ However, a fellow doesn't always have to live with the bride's parents. Jim, this girl was a dream. Tailor-made, cloak-model form, city-broke, kind, and sound. She could just naturally beat the works out of a piano; and talk about your swell valves. Why, the other night she sang "A Sailor's Life's the Life for Me" so realistically that Johnny Black got seasick. Well, to make a long story short, this morning I got an invitation to Katherine Clark's wedding. Jim, did you ever have a fellow come up behind you and smear you back of the ear when you weren't looking? ”

“ There are lots of things that will give you a Colonel, but a R—R—S— is the only thing that will make you feel like a person with a future instead of a person with a past. You must cleanse your liver, and that's all there is to it. ”

“ Why can't a fellow put on a new suit, make a few calls, and go home like a gentleman? The minute I got into that suit, I fell off the water wagon with an awful bump, although I hadn't touched a drink for thirty-seven days. ”

“ If I were a ring I wouldn't let a guy like that wear me. Now will you kindly tell me why it is that a girl will throw a good fellow down every time for one of those Lizzie boys? If I thought there were enough men in the country who feel as I do, I would start "The American Union for the Suppression of Lizzie Boys." ”

“ I was over in New York with the family last winter, and they made me go with them to "Die Walkure" at the Metropolitan Opera House. When I got the tickets I asked the man's advice as to the best location. He said that all true lovers of music occupied the dress circle and balconies, and that he had some good center dress circle seats at three bones per. Here's a tip, Jim. If the box man ever hands you that true lover game, just reach in through the little hole and soak him in the solar for me. ”

“ A fellow is perfectly safe in New York without any money.
We then mounted our deep-sea-going cab, and told the skipper we were for the eats. He took us to a big restaurant on upper Sixth Avenue. We told the waiter to bring us everything that was good. When the waiter returned with the knives and forks, he also brought us some Dill pickles. I took a bite at one of them, and she squirted and hit a fellow at the next table in the eye. I guess a Dill pickle must smart right pert—however, I won't bore you with any details. ”

“ A fat fellow cut into the argument, and some one soaked him in the eye, and then, as they say in Texas, "there was three minutes rough house." In the general bustle a seedy looking man pinched the Fresh Air Fund, box and all. You know I'm not much for the bat cave, and to avoid such after-complications as patrol wagons and things, I blew the bunch and started up street. I guess the wind must have been against me, as I was tacking.
I met Johnny Black, and he was going to keep a date with a couple of swell heiresses at one of the hotel dining-rooms. ”

“ IN NEW YORK Preface
"In New York" is the last of the Baxter Letters for the present. We think it well to stop before we get bad. We make but one claim for distinction—the largest circulation America has ever seen or heard of. The people, up to date, have actually demanded over three and a half million copies, or nearly five car-loads of our little books, and there is no telling where it will stop. We have Robinson Crusoe backed clear off his island, and Uncle Tom's Cabin burned to the ground. Still it would have been a different story had we asked a dollar apiece for our books ”

“ The R—R— is the only water which acts on the liver. It's base is sodium phosphate.
The R—R— is the only water which cools the blood, Overheated blood is what causes the pressure on the head.
The R—R— is the only pleasant-tasting aperient water of any strength on the market to-day.
We have stumbled onto a good thing, and we've got the money to push it.
You remember the man who at breakfast said: "Waiter, bring me about ten grains of oatmeal, and put stickers on it so that it will stay down; and say, waiter, please look as pleasant as possible, for I feel like h—l." ”

“ Dick was then told what he was, and he put it down in a book, after which Alice finished it all up with a flood of tears. The head waiter came up and said: "Look a here, Mary, what ails you, anyway? You're getting so lately you turn them tears on every night. Be a good fellow, and don't make a lot of gents think we're running a morgue. You've blowed half your make-up as it is." Mary, alias Alice, gave the head waiter one withering look, and left the place. ”

“ Dear Jim:
I am just back from St. Paul, where I spent a couple of days with Teddy Worthington. Teddy and Bud Hathaway of Chicago were going on a shooting trip in the Big Woods of Minnesota, and they asked me to go with them. It was new deal for me, so of course I was for it. I hired a hammerless breech-loader for seven a week, borrowed a lot of fishing-tackle, and bought a hunting-knife with a nickel-plated handle. It was a beaut, and stood me three fifty. A fellow can never be too careful. ”

“ They have ticks, jiggers, and gnats, all doing a nice conservative business at once. You never had a tick on you, did you, Jim? Well, a tick is a very busy little cup of tea. First, he'll crawl all over you, and then select a spot on the back directly between the shoulder blades, where you can't reach him. I talked to a man who was up on ticks, and he said a tick was wiser than a bedbug. Now, you take a bedbug whose head is perfectly clear, and who hasn't been drinking or smoking too much, and there won't be many men on Wall Street much wiser than he is. ”

“ Jim, I can remember that just at the start of it a waiter happened to be passing with a very large order on his tray, and for a while the air was literally crowded with oyster stews, Welsh rarebits, glasses, showers of booze, frogs' legs, and everything that wasn't chained down. When the smoke cleared away I was occupying my regular position in the center of the car track. They wouldn't let me in again, and the rest of the fellows were too hungry to come out; so there I was "Alone in New York." The cabman then asked for his money for the whole day. ”

“ More Horse Sense Have you ever sat on the edge of the bed in the morning with your elbows on your knees, your head buried in your hands, and wondered if there was anything you overlooked the night before that would have made you feel worse? ”

“ When we reached the Pennsylvania cab-stand some one had taken the hansom, so we had to hire a carriage. They are building another hansom, and then there will be plenty of hansoms for all. At the hotel Johnny claimed I had a drag because I drew a room with a window in it. Breakfast was hardly over until Bud, without consulting us at all, commenced arrangements for giving a swell dinner to a couple of heiresses who lived on Eighteenth Street and who were worth eight millions, or who lived in Eighth Street and were worth eighty millions— Johnny and I didn't know which. ”

“ She will make you jump through, lie down and roll over, walk lame, and play dead; and don't think for a moment you won't do it, either. All the rest of them have. You show me a man who hasn't been up against such a game, and I'll show you a man who lacks experience. ”

“ I have just been thinking this society push over, and I have come to the conclusion that an active leader in society has more troubles than a man in the wheat pit, and a man in the wheat pit is long on troubles about as often as he is on wheat. ”

“ There is no new scandal worth mentioning. What I started to write you about was Hemingway's duplicate whist party which was pulled off last night. I had a bid, and as there was nothing else stirring, I put on that boy's size dress suit of mine, and blew out there. Jim, you know the signs you see on the dummies in front of these little Yiddisher stores, "Take me home for $io.98," or "I used to be $6.21, now I'm yours for $3.39." Well, that's your Uncle Bill in a dress suit. Every one takes me for a waiter. ”

“ We have given up all hope of ever getting a readable signature from a woman. Don't think for a moment that we have anything against the women. Heaven forbid! We merely say that if there is a woman in the United States who can write plainly, that particular woman hasn't written us yet. ”

“ Too much liquor overheats the blood. Too much food, and the liver goes on a strike. The first remedy which should suggest itself is a purgative which will act on the liver, and cleanse the system of all the indigestible junk with which it has been overtaxed. ”

“ Take the woman who uses fair English and has coin, and let her display the same good cold judgment that has made her husband successful in business, and some rainy Thursday morning the four hundred will wake up and find a new member has joined the order. ”

“ I don't know anything about consoling people, so I just said, "Never mind, Johnny; you and I'll take a trip and try to forget it." Jim, it's been over two years now, and he loves her more than ever. What I want you to do is to write him and tell him to take a rest. He can afford it easily enough. Every time he looks at anything somebody gallops in and hands him a check. Do this, will you Jim? ”

“ A lot of these handsome gazabes go around looking wise, winning girls out, and thinking they are the happy thought. That's because they have had a run of luck and landed in among a bunch of marks. Let them keep it up. It is only a matter of time until they will stumble over a live wire, and then it will be pay-day on the Wabash. It's grand to see a great big slob running along behind some little bit of a girl, a faithful Fido, taking his orders like a politician. I know what I'm talking about, Jim, because I have certainly been the original human dog. ”

“ Teddy always was a rubber. It was lovely cards for a while, and Teddy worked the old gag that he was showing her how they did in a play, but she wasn't wise enough to follow it up, so we had to leave.
While returning on the train I made the horrible discovery that I had been using my buckshot on the ducks and my birdshot on the deer. I can see how the deer got away, but I'll say one thing, and that is, that if a passing duck had ever reached his mitt out for one of those buckshot he would have thought Rusie was doing the pitching. ”

“ I am told that I am no gentleman, and to roll my hoop out of that house forever. What's a fellow going to do? You can never tell whether a girl is really sore or whether she is stalling. A girl might be for a fellow strong, and yet she wouldn't admit it for a thousand dollars. ”