ore.

No use to say how and what we feel when we attend such performances. It
is all right to say "Look the Other Way," _but it can't be done_. It is
human nature to gaze upon horror--sometimes in sympathy, but more often
in amazement. Sometimes a well staged scene of gormandizing viewed from
a seat in the second or third row center of a softly lighted, thick
carpeted food emporium _saves us the price of our own meal_. We no
longer hunger on our own account. Our appetite is appeased by proxy, so
to speak, and we calmly fix our eyes on the "big show" and _sigh for a
baseball bat_.

No wonder a noted bachelor of medicine declares "People are what they
eat!" The exclamation point is our own. We quite agree with our medical
brother for we have seen people eat until we thought _we_ would never be
hungry again.

But there is more to self-indulgence than the food specialist has to
answer for, so we will be on our way. For instance, there is _the
spendthrift_; surely he is entitled to a short stanza. We all know him.
He goes on the theory that he has all the spending money in the world,
and that long after he is dead those on whom he spent it will remember
his generosity. Vain hope!--Whatever memory of him remains will be of a
different kind. Those who have been bored by his gratuitous attentions
will take up the threads of their existence where they left off when he
drove them away from their usual haunts. No longer will they have to
dodge down alleys and run up strange stairways in an effort to avoid his
overtures.

[Illustration: _Douglas Fairbanks in "The Good Bad-Man"_]

When alive and in full operation he knew more about what was best for us
than we could possibly think of knowing. Left to his own devices he
would have us smoke his particular brands, drink his labels, eat his
selections, wear his kind of a cravat, overcoat, cap, hat, shoes, and
underwear. And to make his proposition sound business like he would
willingly pay the bills! In this little amusement we are supposed to
play the part of receiver and _praise his generosity_.

Whatever may be our verdict on this chap we must keep in mind that his
inordinate desire to waste his substance was no less than a vice if for
no other reason than its example upon others; it is just as bad to be _a
"receiver"_ as it is to be _a spendthrift_. If we cannot build up a
reputation for generosity without becoming ostentatious we might better
take lessons in refinement from