unearths some literary gems.
From Frank Sullivan:
***
If the household had consisted of just ourself, the telephone company would have whistled for its dough. We should have written a letter to all the directors of the company stating the amount due from us and asking them to name a day for the whistling. The triumph would have been ours, too, for the chances are that not one out of twenty-five telephone company directors can whistle worth a hoot. Granted that a larger proportion could, that could be fixed easily by parading up and down in front of the whistling ranks sucking a lemon. That would fix their whistles for a while.
[Note that the editorial we's cousin is evidently the editorial "ourself," not "ourselves"!]
***
So you can see why there was no year. Men were too busy with other things to bother with inventing the year. Time existed, but in bulk. It had not been squared and cut, like a pan of fresh fudge. In those days, also, time was rather young and not so snooty as it is to-day. Time was glad enough to wait for men then. But it’s the way with all successful businesses. Once time got a start, it was a case of forgetting the old friends it had been glad to wait for in the old days.
***
Where would America be to-day if it were not for Vassar girls? It probably would be all askew, with the present Atlantic Coast stuck down near the Gulf of Mexico and the Great Lakes bordering on what is now Puget Sound. In fact, that was the shape the country was in early in the last century. The trouble was due to the fact that Oregon and Washington had caught on the edge of Canada.
Who was it braved the perils of a trip across the then trackless waste of the continent and unhooked the United States from Canada so that it could slide around into its proper position? It was two Vassar graduates, Lewis and Clarke, that’s who it was.
***
“By George,” he exclaimed, “I never thought of that.”
“By George who?”
He thought that over.
“By George, I guess you’ve got me there,” he said. “I don’t know what George I say ‘By George’ about.”
“Sloppy diction,” I rebuked. “Lazy mental processes. Don’t do it, my good man. Settle upon one George and stick to him.”
