o 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 ha