An Interrupted Thesis.

Free Lance, Volume XIV, Issue 692, 4 October 1913, Page 25

An Interrupted Thesis.

' jf'lhe reader," the professor wrote. "I :" " . think can scarcely miss significant'conclusion,- which is ob- .. •vioualy this: —" • '; A man or erudition .(be had met the : , missing linkl) "-JHe swung an able goose-quill steeped in scientific int. He was finishing a thesis which .he felt ■ to be sublime ■-- -_• Por a weighty publication on a topic of ' the time, "When softly up behind him crept a sweet ..: - • and dainty miss, l , Who deftly % placed upon hjs cheek a ... most coquettish kiss. ■"It's your Cousin Isabella," said the maiden, with a smile; ""I thought I'd just drop in, you know, and visit you-awhile." The quill dropped from the savant's grasp;' he raised, his timid eyes. , # • "Your salutation," he confessed, "quite ' took me by surprise.'.' " But soon she put him at his ease; and, when she rose to go, He said that down the street with her he'd walk a block or so. .-* * * * The weeks went. by. Dust sifted in the sage professors den; • It lay upon his desk and soiled the whiteness of his pen; • \ It gave a look to Darwin's bust, raised high upon a shelf, - As if a worldly-minded man, who knew , how 'twas himself. At last the wise professr came, 'one melancholy day— # He sadly took his thesis up, and brushed the dust - away. "The reader," the professor wrote. "I think can scarcely miss. The significant ' conclusion—-there abb microbes in a kiss." —Fred Nye.