Franklin P. Adams

“ Carlyle threw a teacup at Mr. Carlyle should be given to the public merely as a fact.
But a fact presented to people without the proper—or even, if necessary, without the improper—human being to go with it does not mean anything and does not really become alive or caper about in people's minds. ”

“ Of the clink of the ice in the pitcher that the boy brings up the hall.
But sweeter to me than the sparrow's song or the goose's autumn honks
Is the sound of the ice in the shaker as the barkeeper mixes a Bronx.
Between the dark and the daylight, when I'm worried about The Tower,
Comes a pause in the day's tribulations that is known as the cocktail hour ”

“ Palmer has taken the raw, human—all too human—stuff of the underworld, with its sighs of sadness and regret, its mad merriment, its swift blaze of passion, its turbulent dances, its outlaw music, its songs of the social bandit, and made a new art product of the theatre. She is to the sources of jazz and the blues what François Villon was to the wild life of Paris. ”

“ The telephone bell rang full and clear;
The receiver did I seize.
"Hello!" quoth I, and quoth a girl,
"Hello!... One moment, please."
[Pg 91]
I waited moments ane and twa,
And moments three and four,
And then I sought that fair merchant
And spilled his selfish gore.
That business man who scorneth to waste
His moments sae rich and fine
In calling a man to the telephone
Shall never again waste mine!
And every time a henchwoman
Shall cause me a moment's loss,
I'll forthwith fare to that office
And stab to death her boss.
Rise up! Rise up! thou blesséd knight! ”

“ Seizing the heavy tongue of the bell, as it was about to move, she swung far out suspended in mid-air, oscillating, thus preventing the bell from ringing. Hemingway's deafness prevented him from hearing the bell ring, but as he [Pg 126] had been deaf for 20 years, he attributed no importance to the silence.
As Miss Smith descended, she met Oliver Cromwell, the well-known lord protector, who had condemned Underwood to death. Hearing her story and noting her hands, bruised and torn, he said in part: "Go, your lover lives. Curfew shall not ring this evening." ”

“ Consider avuncular William
And Phryne, the vamp.
[Pg 16] On the Flight of Time Horace: Book I, Ode 2 "Tu ne quæsieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi"
AD LEUCONOEN
Look not, Leuconoë, into the future;
Seek not to find what the Answer may be;
Let no Chaldean clairvoyant compute your
Time of existence.... It irritates me!
Better to bear what may happen soever
Patiently, playing it through like a sport,
Whether the end of your breathing is Never,
Or, as is likely, your time will be short. ”

“ For thee his sanguine life shall end—
He'll spill his blood, to put it plainly.
And never shalt thou feel the heat
That blazes in the days of Sirius,
But men shall quaff thy soda sweet,
And girls imbibe thy drinks delirious.
Fountain whose dulcet cool I sing,
Be thou immortal by this Ode (a
Not wholly meretricious thing) ,
Bandusian fount of ice-cream soda!
[Pg 15] The Stalling of Q. H. F. Horace: Epode 14 "Mollis inertia cur tantam diffuderit imis"
Mæcenas, you fret me, you worry me
Demanding I turn out a rhyme ”

“ Tom hurl a teacup at Jane's jaw.
She silent sat, nor tried to speak up
When came the wallop with the teacup—
A cup not filled with Beaune or Clicquot,
But one that brimmed with Orange Pekoe.
"Jane Welsh Carlyle," said Thomas, bold,
"The tea you brewed for m' breakfast's cold!
I'm feeling low i' my mind; a thing
You know b' this time. Have at you!"... Bing!
And hurled, threw he at her the teacup;
And I wrote it, deeming it unique, up.
[Pg 32]
BY OUR OWN OSCAR WILDE
Lady Leffingwell (coldly) .—A full teacup! What a waste! So many good women and so little good tea. ”

“ Never bother if the street is full of ooze;
Do not fret that you'll upset, that you will spoil your summer frippery,
You may turn about as sharply as you choose.
For those myriad claws will grip the road and keep the car from skidding,
[Pg 38] And your steering gear will hold it fast and true;
Every atom of the car will be responsive to your bidding,
AND those thousand claws are mileage insurance, too—
Oh, indubitably,
Those thousand claws are mileage insurance, too. ”

“ You are the cloud that dims the stars.
Your daughter Pholoë may stay
Out nights upon the Appian Way;
Her love for Nothus, as you know,
Makes her as playful as a doe.
No jazz for you, no jars of wine,
No rose that blooms incarnadine.
For one thing only are you fit:
Buy some Lucerian wool—and knit!
[Pg 11] His Monument Horace: Book III, Ode 30 "Exegi monumentum aere perennius——"
The monument that I have built is durable as brass,
And loftier than the Pyramids which mock the years that pass. ”

“ Then might I sing a Taylorian chant.
Oh, for the lyrical art of a Tennyson!
Oh, for the skill of Macaulay or Burke!
None of these mine; so I give him my benison,
Turning reluctantly back to my work.
O Millard Fillmore! when a man refers
To thee, what direful, awful thing occurs? ”

“ The gold upon a sinking ship has often wrecked the boat,
While on a simple oar a shipwrecked man may keep afloat.
The burglar seeks the plutocrat, attracted by his dress—
The poor man finds his poverty the true preparedness. ”

“ Or this impinging season is to be our very last one—
Really, I'd hate to know.
Apply yourself to wisdom! Sweep the floor and wash the dishes,
Nor dream about the things you'll do in 1928!
My counsel is to cease to sit and yearn about your wishes,
Cursing the throws of Fate.
[Pg 4]
My! how I have been chattering on matters sad and pleasant!
(Endure with me a moment while I polish off a rhyme) .
If I were you, I think, I'd bother only with the present—
Now is the only time.
[Pg 5] The Doughboy's Horace Horace: Book III, Ode 9 "Donec eram gratus tibi——" ”

“ Both have found exquisite blossoms of art in the sector of life most removed from the concert room and the boudoir, and their harvest has the vigour, the resolute life, the stimulating quality, the indelible impress of daredevil, care-free, do-as-you-please lives of the picturesque men and women who defy convention.—From Keith's Press Agent. ”

“ No lack of fame is chronicker
Than that about my monicker;
My verse is never cabled
At a fabled
Rate per line.
Still though the Halls
Of Literature are closed
To me a bard obscure I
Have a consolation The
Copyreaders crude and rough
Can't monkey with my
Humble stuff and change MY
Punctuation.
[Pg 98] Ballade of the Traffickers
Up goes the price of our bread—
Up goes the cost of our caking!
People must ever be fed;
Bakers must ever be baking. ”

“ But what I want and what I believe most people want when a fact is being presented is one or two touches that will make natural and human questions rise in and play about like this:
"Did a servant see Mrs. Carlyle throw the teacup? Was the servant an English servant with an English imagination or an Irish servant with an Irish imagination? What would the fact have been like if Mr. ”

“ Harte said that his feelings were shocked by the chicanery of Nye, but that the hands held by Ah Sin were unusual. Nye, maddened by the Chinaman's trickery, rushed at him, 24 packs of cards spilling from the tong-man's long sleeves. On his taper nails was found some wax.
The "Mongolian," Harte said, is peculiar.
Harte and Nye are thought to have lost a vast sum of money, as they are wealthy authors.
The legislature, it is said, will investigate the question of the menace to American card-players by the so-called Yellow peril. ”

“ Fortunate is Mrs. Jane Welsh Carlyle to have escaped with her life, though if she had not, no American worthy of the traditions of Washington could simulate acute sorrow. Mr. Carlyle, wearied of the dilatory methods of the Bakerian War Department, properly took the law into his own strong hands.
The argument that resulted in the teacup's leaving Mr. Carlyle's hands was common in most households. It transpires that Mrs. ”

“ In Oregon, which went dry in 1916, the number of women hit by crockery has decreased 4.2 per cent in three years. Of 1,844 women in Oregon hit by crockery in 1915, 1,802 were hit by glasses containing, or destined to contain, alcoholic stimulants. More than 94 per cent of these accidents resulted fatally. The remaining 22 women, hit by tea or coffee cups, are now happy, useful members of society. [Pg 35]
If Amy Lowell Had Been James Whitcomb Riley A DECADE
When you came you were like red wine and honey,
And the taste of you burnt my mouth with its sweetness. ”

“ The best players in the big preparatory schools prefer to study at Cambridge, where they can earn fame on the gridiron. They do not care to be identified with Yale and Princeton.—Joe Vila in the Evening Sun. ”

“ Advising Chloë Horace: Book I, Ode 23 "Vitas hinnuleo me similis, Chloë——"
Why shun me, my Chloë? Nor pistol nor bowie
Is mine with intention to kill.
And yet like a llama you run to your mamma;
You tremble as though you were ill.
No lion to rend you, no tiger to end you,
I'm tame as a bird in a cage.
That counsel maternal can run for The Journal—
You get me, I guess.... You're of age.
[Pg 9] To An Aged Cut-up Horace: Book III, Ode 15 I
"Uxor pauperis Ibyci,
Tandem nequitiæ fige modum tuæ——"
IN CHLORIN
Dear Mrs. ”

“ Quote Isn't capital God upon the ocean comma
Just the same as on the land interrogation point close quote
Then we kissed the little maiden comma
And we spake in better cheer comma
And we anchored safe in harbor
When the morn was shining clear period
[Pg 97] The Comfort of Obscurity INSPIRED BY READING MR. KIPLING'S POEMS AS PRINTED IN THE NEW YORK PAPERS
Though earnest and industrious,
I still am unillustrious ”

“ Smith, the young and beautiful fiancée of Basil Underwood, a prisoner incarcerated in the town jail, saved his life to-night.
The woman went to "Jack" Hemingway, sexton of the First M. E. Church, and asked him to refrain from ringing the curfew bell last night, as Underwood's execution had been set for the hour when the bell was to ring. Hemingway refused, alleging it to be his duty to ring the bell. ”

“ Give us but plenty when we show
That we deserve to have it so!
Mine ode is finished! Tut! It is a slight one,
But blame me not; I do as I am bid.
The editor of Collier's said to write one—
And I did.
[Pg 124] What the Copy Desk Might Have Done to: ("Annabel Lee")
SOUL BRIDE ODDLY DEAD
IN QUEER DEATH PACT High-Born Kinsman Abducts
Girl from Poet-Lover—Flu
Said to Be Cause of Death—Grand
Jury to Probe
Annabel L. Poe, of 1834-1/2 3rd Av., the beautiful young fiancee of Edmund Allyn Poe, a magazine writer from the South, was found dead early this morning on the beach off E. 8th St. ”

“ O bards of rhyme and metre free,
My gratitude goes out to ye
For all your deathless lines—ahem!
Let's see, now.... What is one of them?
[Pg 45] How Do You Tackle Your Work?
How do you tackle your work each day?
Are you scared of the job you find? ”

“ When Harry Smith could write!
[Pg 28] Maud Muller Mutatur
In 1909 toilet goods were not considered a serious matter and no special department of the catalogs was devoted to it. A few perfumes and creams were scattered here and there among bargain goods.
In 1919 an assortment of perfumes that would rival any city department store is shown, along with six pages of other toilet articles, including rouge and eyebrow pencils.
—From "How the Farmer Has Changed in a Decade: Toilet Goods," in Farm and Fireside's advertisement. ”

“ FEARFUL THING IN WINTER
BOSTON, MASS, Jan. 17—Cheered by the faith of little "Jennie" Carpenter, the 7-year-old daughter of Capt. B. L. Carpenter, of a steamer whose name could not be learned, 117 passengers on board were brought through panic early this morning while the storm was at its height, to shore.
George H. Nebich, one of the passengers, told the following story to a COURIER reporter:
"About midnight we were crowded in the cabin, afraid to sleep on account of the storm. All were praying, as Capt. ”

“ The steamer, it was said at the office of the company owning her, would leave as usual to-night for Portland.
[Pg 129]
("Plain Language from Truthful James")
AH SIN, FAMED TONG MAN,
BESTS BARD AT CARD TILT "Celestial" Gambler, Feigning Ignorance
of Euchre, Tricks Francis Bret Harte and
"Bill" Nye into Heavy Losses—Solons
to Probe Ochre Peril
SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 3.—Francis B. Harte and E. W. Nye, a pair of local magazine writers, lost what is believed to be a large sum of money in a game of euchre played near the Bar-M mine this afternoon. ”

“ The Mayflower carried a cargo of antique furniture.
Among those on board were William Bradford, M. Standish, Jno. Alden, Peregrine White, John Carver and others.
Steps are being taken to organize a society of Mayflower Descendants.
[Pg 132]
("The Bridge Of Sighs")
KINLESS YOUNG
WOMAN, WEARY,
TAKES OWN LIFE Body of Girl Found in River
Tells Pitiful Story of
Homelessness and Lack of
Charity
LONDON, March 16.—The body of a young woman, her garments clinging like cerements, was found in the river late this afternoon. ”