THE AMERICAN HUMORIST.

Mataura Ensign, 15 May 1912, Page 7

THE AMERICAN HUMORIST.

♦ 'LIFE'S' FUN AND FANCY. » AT A TURKISH BATH. Gentle reader, have you ever bathed ? Turkish bathed? I wot not. 1 have, woe is me, and I am now a sadder and a cleaner man. If this article, which is meant to be deliriously ligh" a " £ ' P ful, appears to you to be fraught Auth an underlying varicose vein of gloom, do not hastily pass it by, but remembei that it's in the interest of science that I have dallied with this luxury of the Orient (so-called). Also remember that I have contracted a deep, sonorous cold which will, in all probability, fondlj nestle in my bosom till my ms-ei "TrprSminariesofthetakisb^th are simple. You pay one dollai at the door and pass into the 'cooling room, where the mercury registers ninetyeight degrees. The appropriateness of this title does not burst upon you uiuil von have visited the inn-; w ''J' ro the temperature :.s n*' -var boiling point. In til- *v -.ling room you are privileged to deposit your valuables m a safe. I did not avail myself of this boon, however, for reasons of a purely private nature, but passed at once mto the "disrobing room." I This room was not so large as to appear dreary, nor yet so small as some I liave lodged in on the Bowery, but was about seven by four. The furniture was simple yet chaste, consisting of a chair and a brush and comb long past their prime. The comb was chained to the wall, but the brush was permitted to roam at will. Hastily divesting myself of sealskins, Jaegers and other panoplies of rank, I arranged them m a neat pile in the center of the room and placed the chair upon them. This simple k precaution I had learned while ■ ing a room separated from its fellow s by low partitions. Your neighbor may he a disciple of Izaak Walton, and during your sleep or absence may take a cast over the partition with hook and line. What could be more embarrassing than to have one's trousers thus surreptitiously removed! I am a lover of the "gentle art" myself, but I am ever, loath to be played for a sucker. I T was now ushered into the ( hot room," wlxere a number of gentlemen were lolling about and perspiring affably and fluently. Being of a timid, thrinking nature, I was somewhat embarrassed on entering a room thus filled with strangers, and the more so as I realized that nly costume was too bizarre and striking for one of my ■willowy proportions. So I flung myself with an affectation of easy grace upon a marble divan, but immediately arose therefrom with a vivid blush and a large blister. T then sat upon a seething chair until I came to a boil, when I rose up and endeavored to alleviate my sufferings by restlessly pacing the room. A few towels were scattered about, and as the nimble chamois leaps from crag to crag, so leaped I from towel to towel in my efforts to keep my feet off the red-hot floor. Having basked in this room until I was quite aglow, I summoned the attendant and told him he could take me out at once, or wait yet a little longer and remove me through a liose. I then passed into the "manipulating room," where I was laid out on an unelastic marble slab like a "found drowned" at the Morgue, and was taken in hand by a muscular attendant, who proceeded to manipulate me with great violence. He began upon my chest, upon which lie pressed until he lifted ■ f liis feet ofi: the floor and my shoulderV blades made dents in the marble. \ mildly asked if it was absolutely neces sary that my respiratory organs shouk thus be flattened, to which he replied with a rich Turkish accent, "Come off young feller! I know my biz," an< swooped down upon my digestive or gans. Manipulation consists of disjoint ing, dismembering, bruising and rend ing limb from limbj and may be health ful, but it is not popular with me. Thi man said he was a pianist also and tha he could manipulate and at the sain time strengthen his fingers and improv liis technique; and to illustrate li struck a few resounding chords in tli small of my back and then proceede to interpret Wagner up and down m vertebrae, running scales, twiddling u in the treble and thundering down i the. bass, just as if I were the keyboar of a Steimvay grn,7id—an illusion doubl less heightened by the ivory whitenes of my skin. He wound up by playin that grand show-off piece, the "Battl of Prague," while I joined in with tli "Cries of the Wounded." It was a fin rendering, no doubt, but next time -am to be played upon I shall ask for soft andante movement —a Chopin noc turne, say. Pragmatism. This was the note which was hande to one of the grade teachers the othe day: "Dear Mum—Please ixeuse Johnn to-day He will not be at school. He i as timekeeper for his fatliei Last night you gave him this iximpk if a,field is 4 miles square how long wi it take a man walking 3 miles an hou to walk times around it? Johnn ain't no man, so wc had to send hi daddy. They lef; early this morning and my husband said they ought to b , . back late to-night, tho it would be liar going. Dear Mum, please make tli nixt problem about ladies, as my htu band can't aoffrd to lose the day' work. I don't have no time to loaf, bu I can spare a day oft' occasionally bettc than my husband can. Rcsp'yVrs, "Mrs Jones." Actual Photographs. "Has anything ever been discover? on asked tho student of astrc nom.y. "No," replied the old professor, who: mind had slipped a cog and transport? him into mythological fields; "not the pictures'of her are authentic." Revsisd. Poor old Robinson Crusoe, Whatever made him do so? He had attended suffragette meeting heard after-dinner speeches, lived '"i New York, and under these circuri stances took the first aeroplane tin •came along, which accounts for the re; son why He flew so. —'NY. Life.'