tle tin cup strapped in my left armpit is for Swedish matches
that failed to ignite. It is an invention of my own.

I once intended to allocate a pocket especially for greenbacks, but
found it unnecessary.

LETTERS TO CYNTHIA

I. IN PRAISE OF BOOBS

_Dear Sir--What is a Boob? Will you please discuss the subject a
little? Perhaps I'm a boob for asking--but I'd like to know_.

CYNTHIA.

[Illustration]

BE FRIENDLY WITH BOOBS

The Boob, my dear Cynthia, is Nature's device for mitigating the
quaintly blended infelicities of existence. Never be too bitter about
the Boob. The Boob is you and me and the man in the elevator.

THE BOOB IS HUMANITY'S HOPE

As long as the Boob ratio remains high, humanity is safe. The Boob is
the last repository of the stalwart virtues. The Boob is faith, hope and
charity. The Boob is the hope of conservatives, the terror of radicals
and the meal check of cynics. If you are run over on Market Street and
left groaning under the mailed fist of a flivver, the Bolsheviki and
I.W.W. will be watching the shop windows. It will be the Boob who will
come to your aid, even before the cop gets there.

1653 BOOBS

If you were to dig a deep and terrible pit in the middle of Chestnut
Street, and illuminate it with signs and red lights and placards
reading, _DO NOT WALK INTO THIS PIT_, 1653 Boobs would tumble into it
during the course of the day. Boobs have faith. They are eager to plunge
in where an angel wouldn't even show his periscope.

THE BOOB RATIO

But that does not prove anything creditable to human nature. For though
1653 people would fall into our pit (which any Rapid Transit Company
will dig for us free of charge) 26,448 would cautiously and
suspiciously and contemptuously avoid it. The Boob ratio is just about 1
to 16.

HE LOOKS FOR ANGELS

It does not pay to make fun of the Boob. There is no malice in him, no
insolence, no passion to thrive at the expense of his fellows. If he
sees some one on a street corner gazing open-mouthed at the sky, he will
do likewise, and stand there for half hour with his apple of Adam
expectantly vibrating. But is that a shameful trait? May not a Boob
expect to see angels in the shimmering blue of heaven? Is he more
disreputable than the knave who frisks his watch meanwhile? And suppose
he does see an angel, or even only a blue acre of sky--is that not worth
as much as the dial in his poke?

HE SEES THEM

It is the Boob wh