[Illustration]

GENT.  Two-thirds of a gentleman.

GENTLEMAN.  A title which many a man claims because the public hasn’t time to prove him otherwise.

GERM.  See microbes.  In order to see microbes you’ll have to get a magnifying glass.

GOSH.  A Yankee synonym for dad bust it!  See dag my buttons! See any Reub.

GOSSIP.  Something which a woman hears with one ear and tells with both.  A woman who can put two and two together and make five.

GOOD TIME.  About $9 worth of headache next morning and eighteen cents in small change left in the pocket.

GOURMAND.  A man who delights to make his stomach feel like a department store.

GRAND OPERA.  A disease which breaks out in society every winter and can be cured only by inward applications of a seat in a box and outward applications of diamonds on the chest.

* * * * *

Bjingle Bjangle, the celebrated Norwegian raconteur, thus describes in his book of travels a visit to the grand opera in New York, as follows:—­

I went to the opera last night and enjoyed it unspeakably.

I noticed that most of the ladies in the boxes enjoyed it also, but not unspeakably.

The ladies, Heaven bless them! seemed to be suffering from that operatic disease which is called nervous conversation.

This is a disease which attacks the vocal chords just as soon as the curtain rises and causes the voice to fall out.

I also enjoyed the names of the singers.

Some of the names on the programme looked like a round robin sent out by a Turnverein bowling club, but I suppose if they were baked in the oven until translated they would mean something soft and soothing like a custard pudding.

Why is it that foreign singers and singerettes always have a name which listens like a cuckoo clock with a sore throat.

Perhaps if we knew how to unlock them these names would mean just plain Schmidt or Jones.

There was one singer on the programme that had the most extravagant name I ever witnessed.

If you read it off quick it sounded like the finish of the six-day bicycle race at the Madison Square Garden.

Then if you looked at it sideways it seemed to be the report of a skirmish between the Russians and the Japs.

I think that fellow just waded into the alphabet with a dip net and all the letters he caught he kept.

I liked the plot of the Opera.

[Illustration]

She was a blonde lady with one of those embonpoint faces which must cost a good deal to keep in repair.

The hero was a young gentleman with a sweet expression and a forehead which had moved into his hair when it was very young.

I don’t know which was the villain, but I have my suspicions that it was the usher who gave me a seat.