(September 24 to October 23)
LIBRA IS the sign of the Scales, and those born under this sign are noted for their tendency to balance one thing against another. This characteristic is not understood by persons born under less subtle signs and they may sometimes accuse you of trying to eat your cake and have it too. You may comfort yourself with the knowledge that they would do the same if they knew how. Your passion for symmetry extends to every sphere of life; an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is the law of the Libra-born, and “getting even” is absolutely necessary to those with such a nicely balanced temperament. In order that this dominant trait in your character may have fullest scope, you would do well to embrace such professions as the law or the civil service, in which society will recognize and support your desire to arrange things to suit yourself. You are not moved by an ugly desire to overreach your fellow-man; you are simply determined to keep level with him at all times, and as people born under other signs are usually losers in some of the encounters of life you, the Libra-born, must not be surprised if, on the average, you come out a little ahead of everyone else.
Your lucky colours are white, yellow and blue. Your lucky flowers are foxglove, violet, daisy and lily-of-the-valley. Your lucky gems are the moonstone, sapphire, opal, beryl and coral. These are trivial considerations, however, when compared with the long-established astrological fact that women born under Libra are exceptionally lucky in love. Do not trade too heavily on this; do not assume that whatever you do, you can’t go wrong. But if you use ordinary gumption, you have a better chance than most girls of having a few recollections to whisper to your grandchildren when your children are out of the room. This particular kind of good fortune does not extend to Libra men; their success lies in trades which mean delving in the earth—mining, plumbing and grave-digging. Whether this latter good fortune extends to the higher flights of the mortician’s art is a question for which Wizard Marchbanks has not yet been able to wring an answer from the stars.
The sign under which you were born disposes you to almost any ailment which strikes below the belt. Your kidneys, lower abdomen, lumbar region and knees are your weak points. Though in general full of advice on matters relating to health, Wizard Marchbanks confesses himself stumped by this situation, and is inclined to tell you to wear flannel drawers and hope for the best. However, it was not for such offhand advice that you bought this book. Therefore it is suggested that you collect a good mixture of herbs—any well-known herbs will do—and brew them into a strong tea; drink freely of this whenever you feel out of sorts. If you feel ill, the herbs will certainly make you feel worse; when this feeling passes the improvement will encourage you and may even bring you back to perfect health, out of sheer relief.
*
To Big Chief Marchbanks.
How, Marchbanks:
Everybody in jail crazy, Marchbanks. Jail doctor bring old white squaw see us jail prisoners today. She squint at me through glasses. You got any sociable diseases, she say. Sure, I say. You want be sociable? How much you spend? Don’t know what she mean. Think she mean party. Everybody holler at me. Doctor tell Turkey turn hose on me. This one hell country, Marchbanks.
How, again,
Osceola Thunderbelly
(Chief of the Crokinoles).
*
REPULSIVE LITTLE STRANGER / While hanging about a friend’s house I picked up a book called The Culture of the Abdomen. It proved to be a gloomy work, holding out little hope for the future of Western Civilization unless we immediately get our abdomens into a condition resembling that of the Maoris and South Sea Islanders. These people, it appears, do elaborate dances in which no part of them moves but their abdomens. I don’t know that I would care to see the National Ballet go over to this technique, but apparently it is wonderful for the tripes.… Even a mediocre writer may create one golden phrase, and the author of this book achieved it in the following sentence: “Upon many a death certificate we read the words Heart Failure, but we know that Fat and Gas are the parents of Heart Failure.” What a magically repulsive picture this calls up! Fat, the loathsome Slob-Mate, is approached by Gas, the fluttering, elusive, faintly-squealing Spectre-Bride, who whispers, “Honey, there’s going to be a Little Stranger soon—little H.F., that we’ve always dreamed of!” And then—BANG!
SANCTA SIMPLICITAS / After a longuish chat with some children today, I reflected that the child’s attitude toward humour differs sharply from that of the adult. In the world of mature people a joke is funny once, and should never be repeated in the same company. But children, having decided that a joke is funny, go on repeating it, laughing more loudly each time, until they collapse in hysteria. The mental age of a man might be gauged by observing how often he can laugh at the same joke.
KING OF THE BEASTS AT LUNCH / To an excellent film about Africa, with some of the best pictures of wild animals that I have ever seen. I was particularly interested in close-ups of a group of lions eating a zebra. Now I was brought up on picture books which insisted that the lion was a noble beast, that killed its prey with a single violent blow, and then stood upon the fallen carcass for a time, roaring; when it had thus worked up an appetite it tore off a leg, devoured it in lonely splendour and rushed off for further spectacular mischief. But here was a picture of five or six lions, all pushing and shoving like human beings, gobbling the guts of the zebra; there was no roaring, no defiance and no loneliness. One lion lay on its side near the feast, gorged and apparently slightly drunk. Vultures stood nearby, like waiters hoping to clear away the dirty plates. The lions ate messily, dropping bits and slobbering on their fronts. It seems that life in the jungle is rather more like life at a short-order lunch wagon than I had supposed. I do not know whether to be pleased or not.
*
To Haubergeon Hydra, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Hydra:
I thought that you might like to know that I don’t believe the Old Age Pension should be increased. Old age is too delightful and dangerous a state to require a pension. Old people are usually very happy, and they are also subversive and a Bad Example. Let me tell you what I know.
Last Saturday I went to a nearby school for boys to watch their annual cadet inspection. I well remember when I was a schoolboy what an agony these affairs were. For weeks beforehand we marched till our legs were stiff; a sergeant-major with an immense stomach rudely urged us to suck in our non-existent stomachs; we polished our buttons till all the brass was worn off them; we polished our boots inside and out; we learned to march slowly, quickly and imperceptibly; we learned to perform complex quadrilles when other boys shouted hoarse and incomprehensible words. And when The Day came, in an agony of fear we performed these feats, believing that we had the admiration and enthralled attention of our elders. We didn’t know whether they admired us or not; our collars were so tight that we were bereft of the senses of sight and hearing. But we believed that they did.
Last Saturday I found out what really went on among the onlookers. While the boys marched, yelled, stamped and drove themselves toward hysterics their elders jabbered among themselves, laughed, averted their eyes from the sweating heroes and occasionally said “Aren’t the little boys sweet?” Some of those boys, Mr. Hydra, were daily shavers and not in the least sweet. And who were the worst offenders in this respect? Who mumbled trivialities during the General Salute? Who turned their backs and sniggered at private jokes while The Colours were being marched past? The Old, Mr. Hydra. The happy, carefree, irreverent, unpatriotic Old.
Don’t raise their pensions until they smarten up, and show a suitable respect for the Young.
Yours from the philosophical eminences of Middle Life,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Mr. Adam Mulligrub.
Dear Mulligrub:
Please send me at once—
(1) 12 bundles containing twelve different Canadian leaves.
(2) 12 packages containing twelve different Canadian nuts.
Some schoolchildren in whom I am interested have been told by their teachers that they must make collections of leaves and nuts as specified above and it occurs to me that you, as a market gardener, are the man to supply them. I shall sell the collections to the children for 50 cents each, or $1.00 for both leaves and nuts, and will send you half. The teacher will be happy, you will be happy, and I shall be happy.
I do not know why the teacher wants this rubbish. The ways of teachers are past understanding. But she wants them, and I have been utterly unsuccessful in getting any together. The fact is, I can only recognize three kinds of leaf. There is the evergreen leaf, which is easy to recognize because it smells like bath salts and probably pricks you. Then there is the maple leaf, which has a jagged edge. All other leaves, to me, are beech leaves.
The teacher thinks differently. She sent one of my small clients back to me with a beech leaf which she said was from a Kentucky coffee tree. Did you ever hear of such a thing? Two other beech leaves she identified as cucumber tree and black cherry. She also asserts that there are 36 kinds of maple and even 6 kinds of willow, which I had always considered a straightforward, honest, one-type tree. The children who bother me about this talk wildly of the mockernut and hickory. I do not believe that such trees exist.
As for nuts, I believed until last week that nuts were made in those shops which smell so strongly of hot fat. To me a nut has always been a confection, something like a humbug or a Scotch mint. But it appears that nuts grow on trees.
Rush the collections as fast as you can, and I will see if I can drum up any more trade among the Nature Study set. They may be wanting stuffed birds next.
Yours faithfully,
S. Marchbanks.
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To Raymond Cataplasm, M.D., F.R.C.P.
Dear Dr. Cataplasm:
A physician who writes for the papers says that a slow heartbeat is a good thing. This is just what I have been saying for years, but nobody will listen. You doctors are really the most self-sufficient tribe!
What animals live longest? Those with the slowest heartbeat. I have no figures handy, but I remember hunting them up once in a medical book. An elephant lives to a great age, and its heart beats about 45 times a minute. A tortoise, if my memory serves me aright, has a heartbeat of approximately 22 thumps a minute. When you get down to really long-lived animals, like crocodiles, the beat is likely to be two or three times a minute. And I once pressed my ear to a parrot’s bosom (getting badly scratched for my pains) and I couldn’t hear any heartbeat at all.
Don’t you think you could extend your patients’ lives indefinitely, and make your fortune and ruin the insurance companies, simply by giving your patients some simple drug to slow down their hearts to the speed of a crocodile’s?
Your perennial patient,
Samuel Marchbanks.
*
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Marchbanks:
I can’t go on like this! It half-kills me to live near a man who hates me the way you do! My lawyers say that if you take that case to court it might cost me my shirt, even if I win. I’m sorry I put the skunk in your car. Honest, Marchbanks!
So here’s what I’ll do. I’ll sell you my car, at a sacrifice. It is a Pierce Arrow 1923, and I’ll let you have it for $1,500, cash.
I can’t say fairer than that, can I?
Your despondent neighbour,
Dick Dandiprat.
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Abhorred Dandiprat:
The jaws of our irresistible legal system are closing upon you. It will be my pleasure, when the jaws open, to pick you out of their teeth.
Yours with demoniacal laughter,
Marchbanks.
*
To Big Chief Marchbanks.
How, Marchbanks!
You been in West, Marchbanks. I once in West. Went with harvest excursion but not like work so get job carving totem poles for Haida tribe. Haida sell poles to tourists, but can’t carve fast enough so start production line. My job always carve big Thunder Bird on top of pole. You know Thunder Bird, Marchbanks. Fierce face with big nose, like magistrate. I carve Thunder Bird to look like every magistrate ever put me in jail. Good fun. But awful hard work, so every day I take 4 quart pail of beer to totem pole factory so I can rest my mind once in a while. One day big fat woman tourist come to factory. You Haida Indian, she say. No me Crokinole Indian, I say. Then you are impositor, she say. No, that kind of printer, I say. What you make there, she say. That Thunder Bird, I say. What that tin pail, she say. That Thunder Mug for Thunder Bird, I say. Joke, Marchbanks. Always joke with squaw. But she screech and tell her friends I am bad man and talk dirty to her. Lie, Marchbanks. Her man friend get cross with me. Why you talk dirty to my wife, he say. She lie to make herself important, I say; I only talk dirty to pretty squaw. He get mad and make big noise and fat woman screech. When they go away I resign from Thunder Bird job. Artist got delicate nerves, Marchbanks. Can’t stand uproar. You buy any totem poles, Marchbanks? You got money? I need money.
How, again,
Osceola Thunderbelly,
Chief of the Crokinoles.
*
To Mr. Adam Mulligrub, Landscape Architect.
Dear Mulligrub:
You ask what kind of hedging I want along the southern boundary of the pleasure grounds at Marchbanks Towers. As a matter of fact I have a special problem there, of which I should have told you. It is at that point that my neighbour, Richard Dandiprat, invades my property in order to take my wheel barrow or my hose, or to recover the ball which he childishly bounces against the side of his house, or to make a shortcut to the bus stop. I have considered various types of thorn bushes but none of them, I fear, would quite fill the need.
Therefore I want you to fill a somewhat unusual order. Will you send to Central Africa for forty small Upas trees, and plant them in hedge formation at the necessary point. The Upas, with which you may not be familiar, is a tree which possesses long tentacles, like those of an octopus; at the end of each tentacle is a sucker of exceptional strength; when any living thing comes within reach of the Upas tree it grabs it with its suckers and drags it to the centre of the tree, where it tears off the flesh, and throws the bones upon the ground; it is upon flesh obtained in this way that the tree is nourished. A good planting of Upas will give me just the hedge I need, I think, and if Dandiprat and any of the neighbourhood dogs disappear it will be a good lesson to trespassers.
Warn the Customs men to be careful when examining the plants, will you? I don’t want any trouble with the Government, which would probably expect me to pay for the uniforms of any missing officials.
Yours faithfully,
S. Marchbanks.
*
BABIES AND THE ADULT MALE / Across the street from my workroom window is an apartment which has a bay-window at my level; during the past few weeks a baby has been making regular appearances there, so that the doings in the street below may entertain it. I judge that it is a male baby, and it is a fine, large child, with a solemn and philosophical countenance. The baby views the street and I view the baby. I like babies, under special circumstances, and by a lucky chance the relationship between me and this particular baby perfectly fulfils all my conditions. I can see it, but I cannot hear it; I can admire its winning ways, and laugh indulgently when it topples over, but it is not near enough to wet me; when it wants anything, a pair of hands appear from behind it with the desired object. This is ideal, and I am thinking of putting this baby in my will. I believe that if the truth were known, my attitude toward this baby is that of most adult males; men like children, but they do not like them to be too close. Some barrier—as for instance a wide street, filled with traffic—between a man and a baby, acts as a powerful stimulant to affection between them.
THE MAGIC OF LATIN / Among the tools of my trade I possess a number of books of quotations, most of which bear titles such as Familiar Quotations, Quotations The Whole World Loves, and the like. The only honestly named one is The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. The fact is that no great fat thick book of quotations can be called “familiar”; very few people can identify more than a dozen of them. Furthermore there are hundreds of quotations in such books which I solemnly swear are not familiar to anybody. The fake profundities of dead politicians, the treacly outpourings of fifth-rate poets, the moonlit nonsense of minor essayists—this junk makes up the bulk of most quotation books. I like Mencken’s book of quotations because it is full of sin and impudence and does not pretend to be familiar; I like the Oxford book because it is unashamedly highbrow and contains a great many quotations in Latin. But the “familiar” nonsense I scorn. I love Latin quotations. I suspect that nobody ever said anything in Latin which was above the level of barber shop philosophy, but it has a wondrous sonority.
LASS WITH THE DELICATE AIR / In a periodical I found a picture of a lovely girl in evening dress; she was able to keep up the social pace, the advertisement said, because she took two indigestion pellets after each meal. Now this is melancholy reading, if you like! I do not choose to think of beautiful girls as eating at all, much less digesting. And the notion that a beautiful girl stuffs herself with dyspepsia tablets all the time is utterly repugnant to me. As an amateur of physiology I know that every human creature has enough acid in its gizzard to eat a hole in a heavy steel beam; as a romantic admirer of Womanhood I decline to apply my knowledge to the young and fair. A girl with indigestion is a traitor to her sex and, much worse, a traitor to mine.
*
To Samuel Marchbanks, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Marchbanks:
I write to enlist your support and membership in the Canadian Laudable Litter League which I am forming. Do you realize, sir, that every day thousands of pounds—nay, tons—of material of one sort and another which should be returned to the soil of our country is burned, or washed down our waterways to the sea, never to be recovered? Vital vitamins, irreplaceable minerals and animal and vegetable matter of all kinds is wasted in this way. The time has come to Call a Halt.
During the Summer I have been doing my bit to preserve what is Canada’s for Canada. Whenever I have been on a picnic I have taken care to throw my hard-boiled eggshell back on the land, to preserve minerals. I have thrown my banana skins and other peelings into farmers’ fields, to put vitamins back into the soil. When others have gathered up their waste paper, I have left it to blow where the wind listeth, for it came from the soil and should return whence it came.
Each member of the Laudable Litter League pledges himself never again to give his garbage to a wasteful urban collector, for burning; instead he takes it into the country (preferably in the dark of the moon, as this is the time approved by our hero, the late Rudolf Steiner) and throws it into the field of some farmer whose soil appears to be impoverished. This should be done by stealth, for the League seeks no credit for its good work.
Begging you to become an honorary L.L.D. (Laudable Litter Distributor) at once, I remain,
Yours literally,
Minerva Hawser.
*
To Haubergeon Hydra, ESQ.
Dear Mr. Hydra:
As I have written to you so often in tones of complaint, it gives me particular pleasure to pay you a compliment on the agreeable manners of the men who deal with immigration on the international bridges at Niagara Falls. As Overseer of Conduct for Civil Servants I thought that you would like to hear about this. During the past month I had some work to do in Niagara Falls, Canada, but I was living with some friends in Niagara Falls, USA, and I use the bridges a good deal.
Each time I crossed I answered much the same questions. “Where were you born?” “Skunk’s Misery, Ontario,” I would reply, in an accent which I acquired abroad, and which has at various times caused me to be taken for an Englishman, an Irishman, a Scotsman, and a native of the Scilly Isles. This accent, and an appearance which suggests an archimandrite of the Greek Orthodox Church, sometimes throws doubt on my Skunk’s Misery origin. But I was always believed. Then, after a few more queries about my sex life and financial status, I would be passed through, with bows and cries of “Huzza for Marchbanks!” If I had any luggage the Customs men would finger it delicately, compliment me on the neatness of my packing and the exquisite taste which I showed in choosing socks and underpants, and wave me on.
The bridge attendants have a sterner side, however, as I saw on my last journey across the bridge. The man who came after me was elderly, with flowing white hair and a goatee—obviously a Southern Colonel. “Have you anything to declare?” asked the Canadian Immigration man. “I declare it’s a mighty hot day, suh!” said the Colonel. As I drove away he was dragged into the Customs House and the thud of cudgels on pulpy flesh mingled with screams in a Southern accent rent the air. Presumably he was suspected of importing a joke, which would of course have been intolerable to our local funnymen, completely upsetting the economy of their trade.
Yours loyally,
Samuel Marchbanks.
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To Chandos Fribble, ESQ.
Esteemed Fribble:
I want you to look into a curious psychological twist which has recently become observable in advertisements for cars. One of these (I need not specify the maker’s name) shows a young man who is about to kiss a very pretty girl, but turns his head at the vital moment to look at a passing car. The second shows a young man in the act of telling a charming girl that he loves her hair, her eyes, and her father’s new car. The third shows a young couple doting upon—a baby? each other?—no, upon a bright shiny car.
Now, Fribble, it looks to me as though the North American male were beginning to exalt motor cars to the position in his esteem once held by women. This is dangerous, and I would like to find out how far it has gone. For if this trend continues the day is not far off when the American male will mate, not with a woman, but with his car, and the result of this union will probably be a winsome, cuddly little motorcycle.
Yours in alarm,
Samuel Marchbanks.
Dear Wittol:
I understand your position exactly. When strange men call on the phone and want to know where Mrs. Wittol is, or to describe to you their feelings toward Mrs. Wittol, it must be very boring for you. But why do you not develop a technique for such callers?
For years I have used a variety of methods for discouraging phoners who are nuisances. The simplest, and one of the best, is to pretend that you can’t hear, and demand repetitions, which you interrupt with cries of “It’s no use: I can’t hear a word you say.” But it is also a good idea to lay the phone down gently, and then to go elsewhere and read a book. This gives the impression that you have been carried off by fairies, or perhaps a great eagle. Sneezing and coughing into the instrument are also effective, when followed by a muttered “Excuse me,” and another blast, or perhaps a groan. And you can always pretend to be talking to someone else in the room with you, so that the phoner gets an impression of divided attention.
There are dozens of ways to discourage telephoners. You must learn to protect yourself. Regards to your wife—if she is still yours.
Marchbanks.
*
MUSICAL PUZZLER / Mingled with some musical people today, almost on terms of equality. I like musical people but I am always astonished by the dogmatic quality of their statements, especially when they are young. For instance, a young lady who was probably about nineteen asserted this afternoon that J. S. Bach had embraced the whole scope of human feelings in his music in a manner more sublime than that of any other composer. I could not permit this to pass. “Where does Bach make even a passable stab at an expression of romantic love?” I asked her, and she could not answer. And truly old Bach, who had two wives and twenty children, had not much to say about this important matter; the majesty of his harmony and the remorseless deedle-doodle of his counterpoint were not geared for it, and in this sphere such lesser creatures as Puccini beat him hollow. The young woman took her revenge by behaving toward me as if I had no soul, which was typically feminine, and pained me not at all. I have quite a large soul—a number 9.
SCENTING AN AUDIENCE / In a weak moment some months ago I agreed to talk to a women’s club today. I am a hardy optimist; when people ask me to make speeches several months before the appointed time I often accept, stupidly thinking that in the interval something will happen to prevent me from making good my promise. But the fateful day always comes, and there I am, on my feet, clutching my notes, with despair in my heart. An audience entirely of men is bad enough, but an audience entirely of women is as frightening as a battery of machine guns. There is one thing about female audiences, though—they have a delicious smell. Powder, expensive textiles and scent—all favourite sniffs of mine,—combine to make them more glorious than a June garden. I am sure not one of these ladies today was wearing any scent below the rank of Chanel Number Five, and I thought I detected several twenty-five-dollars-an-ounce whiffs, for they were wealthy women, knee-deep in good works. So I inhaled deeply and gave tongue. Audiences of men smell of cigars, whisky, and shoe-polish, which inspires me with solemn and world-shaking thoughts, unsuitable for the more delicate intellects of women.
UNVEILING THE FEET / A rainy day, and this afternoon I attended a gathering at which several ladies appeared in overshoes of a type new to me. They were not the honest old goloshes which for generations have made Canadian women look like Brahma hens, but new-fangled creations of a milky-semi-transparent plastic, which gave their feet a mysterious air and which, when removed, looked like the ghosts of overshoes. Several ladies, I also observed, wore what appeared to be bedsocks under their goloshes, but upon closer examination I found that these were little bags which they wore to protect their shoes from being scratched by the (presumably) harshly abrasive linings of their overshoes. There is no enchantment in the spectacle of a woman unwrapping her feet; in my younger days girls wore heavy knitted bloomers over their fine silk-step-ins when attending winter parties, but they always took them off in a room provided for that purpose. A room for foot-unveiling would save much coy balancing in hallways.
DECLINING ART / Pondered upon the decline of the once great art of Striking-the-Match-on-the-Seat of the Pants; I saw a girl in slacks trying to do so, and although she had an impressive acreage of taut trouser upon which to work she could not manage it. A girl! The greatest master of this art I ever knew was an employee in a woodyard, who never spoke of girls save in terms of obscene contempt; how his oaken heart would ache, and his teak head tremble, if he knew that now only girls seek to excel in the trick of which he was a master. He relit his pipe—a short clay—at least fifty times every morning, and always struck his match with a glorious ripping sound upon his blue-jeaned fundament. He died when a load of logs fell on him; if he had survived, shame would finish him now.
CROWNING ENORMITY / I can no longer deceive myself that Autumn is not here, so today I retrieved my hat from the bottom of the hall cupboard, where somebody had stood an umbrella in it, and put it on. This Assumption of the Hat is a symbolic act with me, marking the end of Summer. As I trudged to work I saw many men wearing hats which bore unmistakable signs of imprisonment in hall cupboards; there is a crippled look about the brim of a long-disused hat which is ignominious. The wearers, too, have a self-conscious look, as though they expected people to laugh at them. In the ’Twenties the enthusiasm for going without a hat in Summer arose, simultaneously with the Decline of the Straw Boater. It was thought to be good for the hair to expose it to the sun, wind, soot, sand, smog, fall-out and other elements. Even bald men allowed the Sun to beat down upon their poor skulls, hoping that some sort of vegetation might be encouraged thereby. The delusion that going without a hat is good for the hair has long since been abandoned; ordinary common sense shows that it is bad for the hair, making it dirty, dry and frizzled. But the habit persists, and every year, come Michaelmas, we have to learn to wear hats all over again.
*
To Big Chief Marchbanks.
How, Marchbanks:
This one hell country, Marchbanks. Look at weather. Every Fall people say to me how about Winter. And I say long Winter or short Winter if bears go to sleep or sit up till maybe Christmas. This year my best bear that I trust nearly twenty year go to sleep awful early. He sound asleep right after hunting season. So I say to everybody long hard Winter cause bear asleep. But no hard Winter come. So I go to bear nest and look inside. Bear sound asleep. What hell, I think. Then I see bottle in bear paw. Grab bottle. It say sleeping pills on outside, Marchbanks. Bear steal bottle from some big city hunter, busy fellow can’t sleep without pills. Bear eat every pill. Bear sleep like dead. I wish big city hunter stay out of woods. They ruin woods and weather forecast business for good Indian.
How again,
Osceola Thunderbelly,
Chief of the Crokinoles.
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It is hard to make an empty bag stand upright; even the most complete Social Security scheme can scarcely achieve it.