AN OPTIMIST.

Evening Post, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 9, 10 July 1909, Page 9

AN OPTIMIST.

HAS A VARIETY OF WOES, A STRING OF LOCAL GRIEVANCES ' BUT ASKS FOR NO REDRESS. "I ought to be sad, but I'm. not," said the Optimist. "I'm a paradox. I live with other optimists, and remain an optimist. I would not have spoken if 'Main Trunk' had not written to The Post yesterday about the lollie-smeared and jam-tarted children that mothers take into the trains. No one need wonder why 'Main Trunk' sat on the tart or the pool of unbottled milk, or allowed himself to be used as a door-mat. It happens to me, and I have two eyes, large enough to notice a tart on the seat. One can't help oneself ; one is born that way. And one may, find some comfort — after sitting on a tart — in the reflection that it might have been worse — two tarts or three tarts, and by multiplying the tarts that one might have sat* on, but didn't (except the one little one), one can become quite jovial about it. That is optimism, and it keeps me fat. EVEN BAG l -PIPES DO NOT WORRY HIM. "I live next door to a man who exercises himself on the bag-pipes for a wager. He has a bet that he can get through more bag-piping in an hour than any other Scotsman could accomplish in a day. On the other side of me there are people, with a new baby, and opposite there is a man who keeps a large bark attached to a small undescribable dog. Why don't I shift? That's where I catch ■ you. I might strike a place surrounded by two tireless bag-pipes, new twins, and a pair of barks. In fact I lie awake at night chuckling with satisfaction at the thought that my band consists of only three instrumentalists. It might have been worse — a dozen, two dozen, any number of dozens. I delight in my visions of the agonies endured by people who live next door^to a boarding-house where the lodgers torture different instruments to the seventh degree, and L end up by feeling a sort of glow of gratitude for my modest three. GO-CARTS AND CARS. "On Saturday mghts, in ihe crowded streets, the go-carts and perambulators always rasp my shins. My bones act as a magnet for baby vehicles. Am I annoyed ? Do 1 utter such rumblings and mutterings as I have heard other men vent when similarly smitten ? It is a joy, I assure you. If it had been an electric car ? I picture myself a mangled bundle, and the poor police harried and worried by their failure to get the remains identified. By contrast, the little bruise on the shin and the trifling strip of lost cuticle become a pleasure, and I hug myself with delight at my escape from the harsher fate that might have been, and I feel disposed to hug the perambulator. Once I did, but I had to run for two blocks, as the indignant mother thought that I wished to steal vehicle, baby, and all. "When I am alighting from a car it starts off just when I have one foot on tho ground, and I have to fly around to keep my balance on the pavement. But I am a man of sedentary occupation, and am thankful for the exercise. Besides, the chance of a cracked pate would be much more likely if the caravan bolted before I had. even one foot firmly on the ground. "On rainy days the people with the wettest top-coats always sit next to me in the cars. But it comforts one to think that it is better to have them that way than sitting on top of me. THE GENTLE BUILDERS. "I often happen to pass under the scaffolding on which builders are working, and things happen which a pessimist might term exasperating. Dust and grit fall upon me. I look up to see what is the matter, and get some in the eye. Do I revile those men? I smile genially, and murmur softly : 'Bless you, my builders. You might have dropped a long-handled shovel or a grindstone upon me but you didn't. The whole scaffold might have toppled upon me, but it didn't. Honourable gentlemen of the Bricklayers' Union, kind gentlemen of the Builders* Labourers' Union, 1 thank you for your forbearance. Gentle builders, you have my prayers for longevity and thereafter an eternity of peace and joy.' One day a man, who had dropped half a brick just in front of me, was so touched by my soft comment that he dropped the whole hodful, but they all missed me. CONSOLATION IN MUDHOLES. "If there is a mudhole in a footpath — and. there are plenty in. Victoria-street after rain, especially on the northern, footpath, east of the railway station — I step into it in the dark, not deliberately, but cheerfully. A wet foot is an excellent companion, if properly considered. It puts one on a fellowship with great men who have suffered from, hunger and / cold, and it is easy to thus feel a glory in a sopping sock. And it also makes one put more than threepence in the box for the comfort of the poor and the tick to whom each new day brings it& own new suffering to add to those of the days, that have dragged away, with Leaden feet, iron shod. "Footpaths, at an angle of 45 degrees, with smooth glossy asphalt also give me much mental pleasure, though sometimes it is to the accompaniment of a physical pain. ThiSj type of footpath is usually flanked by a road that, is like the bed of a mountain torrent run dry, or the moraine of a glacier. In choosing between the path and the road for a downward run the mind has opportunities for dainty exercise, and if one alternates between the road and the path one finds a freth exhilaration in life. VARIOUS LUXURIES. "It may sound incredible," the Optimist continued, "but I do enjoy myself when hunting for left luggage in the six by eight box at the Lambton Railway Station. My bag i& always at the bottom of the stack, and I find no end of thrill in the pained expression on the official's face. I assist him in his search by tumbling boxes and portmanteaux on my Jot, when he isn't looking. "Also I enjoy the smell of fish, by the cleaning and curing places, for I have convinced myself that these perfumes, by compelling bacilli that have settled on or in a man to move on, are healthy. I like the dust raked by the tradesmen and their assistants on the footpaths in the mornings ; these clouds reconcile me U> my subsequent imprisonment in my office. That is why I am fat. lam an optimist."