Love Conquers All by Robert C. Benchley

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1. Grand parade around the ring, headed by a brass-band and the mayor in
matador's costume. Invitations to march in this parade will be issued to
every one in the bull-fighting set with the exception of the bull, who
will be ignored. This will make him pretty sore to start with.

2. After the marchers have been seated, the bull will be led into the
ring. An organized cheering section among the spectators will
immediately start jeering him, whistling, and calling "Take off those
horns, we know you!"

3. The picadors will now enter, bearing pikes with ticklers on the ends.
These will be brushed across the bull's nose as the picadors rush past
him on noisy motor-cycles. The noise of the motor-cycles is counted on
to irritate the bull quite as much as the ticklers, as he will probably
be trying to sleep at the time.

4. Enter the bandilleros, carrying various ornate articles of girls'
clothing (daisy-hat with blue ribbons, pink sash, lace jabot, etc.)
which will, one by one, be hung on the bull when he isn't looking. In
order to accomplish this, one of the bandilleros will engage the animal
in conversation while another sneaks up behind him with the frippery.
When he is quite trimmed, the bandilleros will withdraw to behind a
shelter and call him: "Lizzie!"

5. By this time, the bull will be almost crying he will be so sore. This
is the moment for the entrance of the intrepid matador. The matador will
wear an outing cap with a cutaway and Jaeger vest, and the animal will
become so infuriated by this inexcusable _mesalliance_ of garments that
he will charge madly at his antagonist. The matador, who will be
equipped with boxing-gloves, will feint with his left and pull the
daisy-hat down over the bull's eyes with his right, immediately
afterward stepping quickly to one side. The bull, blinded by the
daisies, will not know where to go next and soon will laughingly admit
that the joke has been on him. He will then allow the matador to jump on
his back and ride around the ring, making good-natured attempts to
unseat his rider.

X

WHAT TO DO WHILE THE FAMILY IS AWAY

Somewhere or other the legend has sprung up that, as soon as the family
goes away for the summer, Daddy brushes the hair over his bald spot,
ties up his shoes, and goes out on a whirlwind trip through the hellish
districts of town. The funny papers are responsible for this, just as
they are responsible for the idea that all millionaires are fat and that
Negroes are inordinately fond of watermelons.

I will not deny that for just about four minutes after the train has
left, bearing Mother, Sister, Junior, Ingabog and the mechanical walrus
on their way to Anybunkport, Daddy is suffused with a certain queer
feeling of being eleven years old and down-town alone for the first time
with fifteen cents to spend on anything he wants. The city seems to
spread itself out before him just ablaze with lights and his feet rise
lightly from the ground as if attached to toy balloons. I do not deny
that his first move is to straighten his tie.

But five minutes would be a generous allowance for the duration of this
foot-loose elation. As he leaves the station he suddenly becomes aware
of the fact that no one else has heard about his being fancy-free.
Everyone seems to be going somewhere in a very important manner. A great
many people, oddly enough seem to be going home. Ordinarily he would be
going home, too. But there would not be much sense in going home now,
without--. But come, come, this is no way to feel! Buck up, man! How
about a wild oat or two?

Around at the club the doorman says that Mr. McNartly hasn't been in all
afternoon and that Mr. Freem was in at about four-thirty but went out
again with a bag. There is no one in the lounge whom he ever saw before.
A lot of new members must have been taken in at the last meeting. The
club is running down fast. He calls up Eddie Mastayer's office but he
has gone for the day. Oh, well, someone will probably come in for
dinner. He hasn't eaten dinner at the club for a long time and there
will be just time for a swim before settling down to a nice piece of
salmon steak.

All the new members seem to be congregated now in the pool and they look
him over as if he were a fresh-air child being given a day's outing. He
becomes self-conscious and slips on the marble floor, falling and
hurting his shin quite badly. Who the hell are these people anyway? And
where is the old bunch? He emerges from the locker room much hotter than
he was before and in addition, boiling with rage.

Dinner is one of the most depressing rituals he has ever gone through
with. Even the waiters seem unfamiliar. Once he even gets up and goes
out to the front of the building to see if he hasn't got into the wrong
club-house by mistake. Pretty soon a terrible person whose name is
either Riegle or Ropple comes and sits down with him, offering as his
share of the conversation the dogmatic announcement that it has been
hotter today than it was yesterday. This is denied with some feeling,
although it is known to be true. Dessert is dispensed with for the sake
of getting away from Riegle or Ropple or whatever his name is.

Then the first gay evening looms up ahead. What to do? There is nothing
to prevent his drawing all the money out of the bank and tearing the
town wide open from the City Hall to the Soldier's Monument. There is
nothing to prevent his formally introducing himself to some nice blonde
and watching her get the meat out of a lobster-claw. There is nothing to
prevent his hiring some bootlegger to anoint him with synthetic gin
until he glows like a fire-fly and imagines that he has just been
elected Mayor on a Free Ice-Cream ticket. Absolutely nothing stands in
his way, except a dispairing vision of crepe letters before his eyes
reading:"--And For What?"

He ends up by going to the movies where he falls asleep. Rather than go
home to the empty house he stays at the club. In the morning he is at
the office at a quarter to seven.

Now there ought to be several things that a man could do at home to
relieve the tedium of his existence while the family is away. Once you
get accustomed to the sound of your footsteps on the floors and reach a
state of self-control where you don't break down and sob every time you
run into a toy which has been left standing around, there are lots of
ways of keeping yourself amused in an empty house.

You can set the victrola going and dance. You may never have had an
opportunity to get off by yourself and practice those new steps without
someone's coming suddenly into the room and making you look foolish.
(That's one big advantage about being absolutely alone in a house. You
can't _look_ foolish, no matter what you do. You may _be_ foolish, but
no one except you and your God knows about it and God probably has a
great deal too much to do to go around telling people how foolish you
were). So roll back the rugs and put on "Kalua" and, holding out one arm
in as fancy a manner as you wish, slip the other daintily about the
waist of an imaginary partner and step out. You'd be surprised to see
how graceful you are. Pretty soon you will get confidence to try a few
tricks. A very nice one is to stop in the middle of a step, point the
left toe delicately twice in time to the music, dip, and whirl. It makes
no difference if you fall on the whirl. Who cares? And when you are
through dancing you can go out to the faucet and get yourself a
drink--provided the water hasn't been turned off.

Lots of fun may also be had by going out into the kitchen and making
things with whatever is left in the pantry. There will probably be
plenty of salt and nutmegs, with boxes of cooking soda, tapioca,
corn-starch and maybe, if you are lucky, an old bottle of olives. Get
out a cook-book and choose something that looks nice in the picture. In
place of the ingredients which you do not have, substitute those which
you do, thus: nutmegs for eggs, tapioca for truffles, corn-starch and
water for milk, and so forth and so forth. Then go in and set the table
according to the instructions in the cook-book for a Washington's
Birthday party, light the candles, and with one of them set fire to the
house.

There is probably a night-train for Anybunkport which you can catch
while the place is still burning.

* * * * *

To those male readers whose families are away for the summer:

_Tear the above story out along dotted line and mail it to the folks,
writing in pencil across the top "This guy has struck it about right."
Then drop around tonight at seven-thirty to Eddie's apartment. Joe
Reddish, John Liftwich, Harry Thibault and three others will be there
and the limit will be fifty cents. Game will_ absolutely _break up at
one-thirty. No fooling. One-thirty and not a minute longer._

XI

"ROLL YOUR OWN"

_Inside Points on Building and Maintaining a Private Tennis Court_

Now that the Great War is practically over, until the next one begins
there isn't very much that you can do with that large plot of ground
which used to be your war-garden. It is too small for a running-track
and too large for nasturtiums. Obviously, the only thing left is a
tennis-court.

One really ought to have a tennis-court of one's own. Those at the Club
are always so full that on Saturdays and Sundays the people waiting to
play look like the gallery at a Davis Cup match, and even when you do
get located you have two sets of balls to chase, yours and those of the
people in the next court.

The first thing is to decide among yourselves just what kind of court it
is to be. There are three kinds: grass, clay, and corn-meal. In Maine,
gravel courts are also very popular. Father will usually hold out for a
grass court because it gives a slower bounce to the ball and Father
isn't so quick on the bounce as he used to be. All Mother insists on is
plenty of headroom. Junior and Myrtis will want a clay one because you
can dance on a clay one in the evening. The court as finished will be a
combination grass and dirt, with a little golden-rod late in August.

A little study will be necessary before laying out the court. I mean you
can't just go out and mark a court by guess-work. You must first learn
what the dimensions are supposed to be and get as near to them as is
humanly possible. Whereas there might be a slight margin for error in
some measurements, it is absolutely essential that both sides are the
same length, otherwise you might end up by lobbing back to yourself if
you got very excited.

The worst place to get the dope on how to arrange a tennis-court is in
the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The article on TENNIS was evidently written
by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It begins by explaining that in America
tennis is called "court tennis." The only answer to that is, "You're a
cock-eyed liar!" The whole article is like this.

The name "tennis," it says, probably comes from the French "_Tenez_!"
meaning "Take it! Play!" More likely, in my opinion, it is derived from
the Polish "_Tinith_!" meaning "Go on, that was _not_ outside!"

During the Fourteenth Century the game was played by the highest people
in France. Louis X died from a chill contracted after playing. Charles V
was devoted to it, although he tried in vain to stop it as a pastime for
the lower classes (the origin of the country-club); Charles VI watched
it being played from the room where he was confined during his attack of
insanity and Du Guesclin amused himself with it during the siege of
Dinan. And, although it doesn't say so in the Encyclopaedia, Robert C.
Benchley, after playing for the first time in the season of 1922, was so
lame under the right shoulder-blade that he couldn't lift a glass to his
mouth.

This fascinating historical survey of tennis goes on to say that in the
reign of Henri IV the game was so popular that it was said that "there
were more tennis-players in Paris than drunkards in England." The
drunkards of England were so upset by this boast that they immediately
started a drive for membership with the slogan, "Five thousand more
drunkards by April 15, and to Hell with France!" One thing led to
another until war was declared.

The net does not appear until the 17th century. Up until that time a
rope, either fringed or tasseled, was stretched across the court. This
probably had to be abandoned because it was so easy to crawl under it
and chase your opponent. There might also have been ample opportunity
for the person playing at the net or at the "rope," to catch the eye of
the player directly opposite by waving his racquet high in the air and
then to kick him under the rope, knocking him for a loop while the ball
was being put into play in his territory. You have to watch these
Frenchmen every minute.

The Encyclopedia Britannica gives fifteen lines to "Tennis in America."
It says that "few tennis courts existed in America before 1880, but that
now there are courts in Boston, New York, Chicago, Tuxedo and Lakewood
and several other places." Everyone try hard to think now just where
those other places are!

Which reminds us that one of them is going to be in your side yard where
the garden used to be. After you have got the dimensions from the
Encyclopaedia, call up a professional tennis-court maker and get him to
do the job for you. Just tell him that you want "a tennis-court."

Once it is built the fun begins. According to the arrangement, each
member of the family is to have certain hours during which it belongs to
them and no one else. Thus the children can play before breakfast and
after breakfast until the sun gets around so that the west court is
shady. Then Daddy and Mother and sprightly friends may take it over.
Later in the afternoon the children have it again, and if there is any
light left after dinner Daddy can take a whirl at the ball.

What actually will happen is this: Right after breakfast Roger Beeman,
who lives across the street and who is home for the summer with a couple
of college friends who are just dandy looking, will come over and ask if
they may use the court until someone wants it. They will let Myrtis play
with them and perhaps Myrtis' girl-chum from Westover. They will play
five sets, running into scores like 19-17, and at lunch time will make
plans for a ride into the country for the afternoon. Daddy will stick
around in the offing all dressed up in his tennis-clothes waiting to
play with Uncle Ted, but somehow or other every time he approaches the
court the young people will be in the middle of a set.

[Illustration: For three hours there is a great deal of screaming.]

After lunch, Lillian Nieman, who lives three houses down the street,
will come up and ask if she may bring her cousin (just on from the West)
to play a set until someone wants the court. Lillian's cousin has never
played tennis before but she has done a lot of croquet and thinks she
ought to pick tennis up rather easily. For three hours there is a great
deal of screaming, with Lillian and her cousin hitting the ball an
aggregate of eleven times, while Daddy patters up and down the
side-lines, all dressed up in white, practising shots against the
netting.

Finally, the girls will ask him to play with them, and he will thank
them and say that he has to go in the house now as he is all
perspiration and is afraid of catching cold.

After dinner there is dancing on the court by the young people. Anyway,
Daddy is getting pretty old for tennis.

XII

DO INSECTS THINK?

In a recent book entitled, "The Psychic Life of Insects," Professor
Bouvier says that we must be careful not to credit the little winged
fellows with intelligence when they behave in what seems like an
intelligent manner. They may be only reacting. I would like to confront
the Professor with an instance of reasoning power on the part of an
insect which can not be explained away in any such manner.

During the summer of 1899, while I was at work on my treatise "Do Larvae
Laugh," we kept a female wasp at our cottage in the Adirondacks. It
really was more like a child of our own than a wasp, except that it
_looked_ more like a wasp than a child of our own. That was one of the
ways we told the difference.

It was still a young wasp when we got it (thirteen or fourteen years
old) and for some time we could not get it to eat or drink, it was so
shy. Since it was a, female, we decided to call it Miriam, but soon the
children's nickname for it--"Pudge"--became a fixture, and "Pudge" it
was from that time on.

One evening I had been working late in my laboratory fooling round with
some gin and other chemicals, and in leaving the room I tripped over a
nine of diamonds which someone had left lying on the floor and knocked
over my card catalogue containing the names and addresses of all the
larvae worth knowing in North America. The cards went everywhere.

I was too tired to stop to pick them up that night, and went sobbing to
bed, just as mad as I could be. As I went, however, I noticed the wasp
flying about in circles over the scattered cards. "Maybe Pudge will pick
them up," I said half-laughingly to myself, never thinking for one
moment that such would be the case.

When I came down the next morning Pudge was still asleep over in her
box, evidently tired out. And well she might have been. For there on the
floor lay the cards scattered all about just as I had left them the
night before. The faithful little insect had buzzed about all night
trying to come to some decision about picking them up and arranging them
in the catalogue-box, and then, figuring out for herself that, as she
knew practically nothing about larvae of any sort except wasp-larvae,
she would probably make more of a mess of rearranging them than as if
she left them on the floor for me to fix. It was just too much for her
to tackle, and, discouraged, she went over and lay down in her box,
where she cried herself to sleep.

If this is not an answer to Professor Bouvier's statement that insects
have no reasoning power, I do not know what is.

XIII

THE SCORE IN THE STANDS

The opening week of the baseball season brought out few surprises. The
line-up in the grandstands was practically the same as when the season
closed last Fall, most of the fans busying themselves before the first
game started by picking old 1921 seat checks and October peanut crumbs
out of the pockets of their light-weight overcoats.

Old-timers on the two teams recognized the familiar faces in the
bleachers and were quick to give them a welcoming cheer. The game by
innings as it was conducted by the spectators is as follows:

FIRST INNING: Scanlon, sitting in the first-base bleachers, yelled to
Ruth to lead off with a homer. Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Liebman
and O'Rourke, in the south stand, engaged in a bitter controversy over
Peckingpaugh's last-season batting average. NO RUNS.

SECOND INNING: Scanlon yelled to Bodie to to whang out a double.
Turtelot said that Bodie couldn't do it. Scanlon said "Oh, is that so?"
Turtelot said "Yes, that's so and whad' yer know about that?" Bodie
whanged out a double and Scanlon's collar came undone and he lost his
derby. Stevens announced that this made Bodie's batting average 1000 for
the season so far. Joslin laughed.

THIRD INNING: Thibbets sharpened his pencil. Zinnzer yelled to Mays to
watch out for a fast one. Steinway yelled to Mays to watch out for a
slow one. Mays fanned. O'Rourke called out and asked Brazill how all the
little brazil-nuts were. Levy turned to O'Rourke and said he'd
brazil-nut him. O'Rourke said "Eah? When do you start doing it?" Levy
said: "Right now." O'Rourke said: "All right, come on. I'm waiting."
Levy said: "Eah?" O'Rourke said: "Well, why don't you come, you big
haddock?" Levy said he'd wait for O'Rourke outside where there weren't
any ladies. NO RUNS.

FOURTH INNING: Scanlon called out to Ruth to knock a homer, Thibbets
sharpened his pencil. Scanlon yelled: "Atta-boy, Babe, whad' I tell
yer!" when Ruth got a single.

FIFTH INNING: Mrs. Whitebait asked Mr. Whitebait how you marked a
home-run on the score-card. Mr. Whitebait said: "Why do you have to
know? No one has knocked a home-run." Mrs. Whitebait said that Babe Ruth
ran home in the last inning. "Yes, I know," said Mr. Whitebait, "but it
wasn't a home-run." Mrs. W. asked him with some asperity just why it
wasn't a home-run, if a man ran home, especially if it was Babe Ruth.
Mr. W. said: "I'll tell you later. I want to watch the game." Mrs.
Whitebait began to cry a little. Mr. Whitebait groaned and snatched the
card away from her and marked a home-run for Ruth in the fourth inning.

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 to-day, 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.

XIV

MID-WINTER SPORTS

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 bath-room 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.

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