The Family Album/The Seemingly Enormous but After-All-Intensely-Average Adventures, of the Old Man's Nephew

by Arthur Baer

Layout 2

THE SEEMINGLY ENORMOUS BUT AFTER-
ALL-INTENSELY-AVERAGE ADVENTURES,
OF THE OLD MAN'S NEPHEW

WHEN Aunt Beenie's old man got the gambling fever and swiped the traction company car hoss his wife left him. But the old man didn't miss her expenses, because he had to buy oats for the hoss, which ate almost as much as a wife.

Being a car hoss, the old hatrack wouldn't gallop unless he had a motorman on one and a conductor on the other. The extra weight finally bent the hoss's spine so much that he looked like a scenic railway at Coney Island.

They lost the biggest race of the year because the hoss stopped at each turn to take on passengers.

In the homestretch the old man and his conductor started to fight because the conductor was jerking plenty of nickels, but no bellrope.

That wound up the turf business. All the old boy had left was his jockey outfit and a whip, which ain't much good to-day with all these flivvers running around. Finally the old man went into politics and joined a Republican club to keep warm in the winter.

He was a Democrat in the Summer. But their club didn't have any stove.

The picture on this page is his nephew. He was a Jake-of-all-trades and belonged to fifty unions. So he never ran out of strikes and didn't have to work. He had a wire-haired terrier that he used for a sawmill.

He'd sharpen up the wire hairs, then he'd put a flea on the pup. The terrier would scratch his back on the nearest telegraph pole. About two rubs and the pole would come down. That was a good living for about two years, when the telegraph company started to wonder what was becoming of their special messages.

So, altogether, the old man's nephew didn't get more than five or six years' living out of it. He sold what was left of the poles back to the company. He could never figure why the home town gas corporation had a "No Bills" sign on their fences, because they used to send him one every month. Sometimes they sent him the same one for years.

About two rubs and the pole would come down

He liked his gin and orange juice, but when prohibition started in he found it difficult to get the orange juice. So, in spite of all the friendly advice he used to hear when the married neighbors were throwing dishes at one another, he got married to a lady acrobat.

They started in housekeeping with a birdcage and trapeze. Then he went into business like the United States Cigar Stores and opened up a profit-sharing chain of police stations.

After that he came to New York on the O'Sullivan Line. The first thing he did was to go into the theatrical business and managed a lot of shows.

Folks didn't exactly say that he kept all the money. But they did say that he managed Singer's Midgets because they had small pockets.

He was very temperamental and possessed that artistic flair that made him get his nails manicured just before he threw a Belgian block through the window of a Chinese laundry. He was always dieting and claimed to be a vegetarian, but when he was invited out to dine he could do more to a free meal than Nebraska's thirty-sixth vote did to the brewery business.

Funny how so many guys can be vegetarians between bites on a donated lamb chop. Then his wide came back and they had a quarrel. He was a country gentleman. But he had never been out of a big city. You could tell that. When the boys were treating each other to cigars and drinks you could easily see that he was an out-of-town buyer.

His wife and he decided to break up what housekeeping they had. So she took the trapeze and the birdcage and left him without a place to sleep.

By this time he decided that any flu germ that bit him would get an awful headache, and drank so much near-beer that he had to learn to swim. He got so fat that he looked like a picture of Shakespeare surrounded by his friends.

His last illness was short and dry. They operated on his hip pocket and removed the appendix to the Bartender's Guide.

His life shows that all is not tinsel and glory, but that if a man starts out to make good in this world he has a good fighting chance if he is in the draft age and hasn't got busted arches or a friend on the board.

Taking it in all, we would say that he was a good average citizen. Which is equivalent to the reason why they build annexes to sanitariums.