INDOLENT.  A lazy man just before he becomes a loafer.

IRONY OF FATE.  A man with an invitation to a beefsteak dinner who has to stay home because his wife has acute indigestion.

INDIAN COMMISSIONER.  The gentleman who invented the idea of opening up barber shops near the Indian reservations, so that Lo could get his hair clipped by a reaping machine once every year, whether he needed it or not.

* * * * *

The idea of Marconi’s wireless telegraph system pales into insignificance before the idea of coaxing a wild Indian away from the reservation and running the remorseless horse-clippers over the wild foliage to which his head has been acclimated these many years.

This is a noble suggestion, and no doubt the Indians will take kindly to the barbers and pay them much attention even if their tommyhawks and scalping knives are a little dull at first.

In the dramatic language of the plains Biff Hawkins, of Spotted Dog, Idaho, thus describes the opening of the first barber shop in the vicinity of an Indian reservation: 

“Hist!”

The speaker was the bootblack in one of those handsome hand-painted barber shops which a loving government at Washington has placed at intervals along the border of the Indian Reservation.

“What is it, Mike?” said Sniffles, the barber.

“Hist!”

Again that ominous word, and Mike pointed feverishly at the distant horizon.

On it an Indian was walking, steadfastly, onward, onward, onward!

Remorseless as a gas bill the Indian came onward to the barber shop.

Sniffles, the barber, jumped quickly into his armor-plated working clothes, and Mike, with a sad smile of farewell, crawled into the cyclone cellar and closed the steel doors.

The Indian entered the barber shop.

“You are next!” said Sniffles, politely.

“I know it,” said the Indian; “but I was put next only an hour ago—­hence the delay.  The bay rum, please!”

“You want it for the hair?” inquired the barber.

“No, I want it for a souse,” said the Indian.

“Get in the chair, please!” said the barber.

“Man-Behind-The-Snip-Snap speaks foolish,” said the Indian.  “I am not for a hair cut; I am for that bay rum idea.  Heap thirst!  Don’t keep me waiting!”

The barber turned pale as the awful truth flashed across him.

“What is your name?” he said painfully.

“Man-Afraid-Of-A-Shampoo,” said the Indian, sullenly.

“Nice Indian! pretty Indian! good Indian!  You are not compelled to get your hair cut, you know!” said the barber, wishing to avoid bloodshed.

“Paleface give me heap pain,” said Man-Afraid-Of-A-Shampoo, fiercely.

Sniffles, the barber, trembled and believed him.

“Ugh!” said the Indian.

“Ugh!” has the same meaning in Indian as the word “Oof!” has in English.