The Perils In Fun: Xxvi

A young man came to see me. He had the pallor.

“I would fain to know the cause, he complained, “for a tew fellows and me have only just lately taken such fun, playing with a length of string at the horse water trough down by the Old Farmer’s.”

Dismissing him from my rooms without further word, I swiftly dispatched a boy to the house of his parents with a note.

The parents did as I commanded. The young man was locked in the house for six fortnights and giyen benzoate of lard only at meals.

Unsurprised was I at the following Yule, when came this billet-doux:

“I am now President of the Mercantile Exchange in my town, from a clerk only six months previous. Fellows take me for a man of my Father’s years. I am glad of every chance to trade play for work, and indeed will close this now, tor too much tun may be thus generated by the composing of it!”

Do you see the metamorphosis herewith adumbrated? Would you yet aver that a game of Stick-in-the-Dirt, or a round ot the Indian clubs, is the thing?

There is even today more of the outdoors than of the in-doors. We know this as The Imbalance Infernal. All young fellows should therefore make a chart. On the one side, listing the hours spent in the out-doors. On the other side, listing the hours spent in the in-doors. Do this work in-doors.

Give yoursell a nut, or a licorice root, when the hours spent in-doors should exceed those spent out-doors. If the opposite, then have Fido bite you, or eat salt. In no time, in this way, you will Get Ahead in life. I have never seen it fail.