1930 The Saloon in the Home

THE POTATO AND THE CIGAR

A CAUTION TO YOUNG MEN P OOR Harry; he never married Miss Alice after all; he was not genteel enough. But let me tell you how it happened. Very shortly after they were engaged they met, quite by accident, on the street. It was rather late; Harry had been detained at his office by extra work and Horrors !-he w~s eat– ing a baked potato. Alice, aghast at his vulgarity, appeared as if she did not see who it was and so passed on just as Harry, who had con– cealed the potato (as he thought, unobserved) was about to raise his hat and speak. When he called to see her next evening she was very cool and reserved in manner; in fact gave him the "cold shoulder." Next time he called she was too busy to see him. He visited the following evening with like result. He never called again and Alice got another beau, Frank, and soon forgot all about Harry. One evening after they had become engaged Alice met Frank in the street just as she had Harry. And was Frank eat– ing a baked potato too'? Oh, dear, no! Nothing so low and vulgar as that for Frank was a perfect gentleman. No, he was brandishing his cane and smoking a cigar. Alice was delighted and tripped along happily at his side; looking up into his heaNily moustached face with one of her most bewitching smiles, she murmured, "Oh, Frank, you always smoke such nice cigars." And verily they should have been "nice ones" at six cents a piece while that horrid potato of Harry's, which was really good wholesome food, cost only one penny. [ 40]