Bits and Pieces

by Robert Benchley

  “It was at this time that flying was in its initial stages and we have ample sources from which to draw our conclusions about the manner in which it was done. Hundreds of moving pictures are at our disposal showing a terrifically noisy preliminary agitation in what must have been the motor compartment (motors were used almost exclusively at that time, although there were some motorless planes called gliders which received an abnormal amount of publicity), followed by a flash of more or less formless shadow and something disappearing into the air. It is hard to imagine such public interest in an activity as natural as flying, but great crowds would sometimes assemble at the take-off or landing, and the one who was making the flight would at times deliver a short speech saying that he had every intention of reaching his destination.

  “All of these films are readily accessible to those students of archeology who are interested in the period under discussion and, on application at the registrar’s office, will be shown gladly. Except to postgraduate students, however, they are not very interesting.”

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  “Over the Top”

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  One of the most disastrous effects of the late war (you remember the late war, surely) was the success of the five Liberty Loan drives. These drives bred within our nation a race of four-minute speakers and drive experts which threatens to push most of the remaining population into the sea. At least one-fifth of the country’s citizens are now spending their time trying to exhort money out of the other four-fifths.

  Until the war and the Liberty Loan campaigns, whenever a hospital or boys’ club needed money they made up a modest budget and went around quietly to the houses of wealthy citizens with a gentlemanly plea for assistance. They were very careful not to get the wealthy citizen up from the dinner table on their calls, because he might get cross and not subscribe. And at the close of the campaign they printed a little list of subscribers and headed it “Our Good Friends.” In other words, they knew their place.

  Then came the war (the same war we referred to above). The government needed money and the Treasury Department organized gigantic squads of publicity experts, public speakers, sob sisters, and organization men to whip the nation in line. It was probably the only time in the history of the country when all its publicity experts and newspaper reporters had jobs.

  What happened was that thousands of perfectly terrible speakers got the idea that they were good, thousands of very bad executives got the idea that they could put the thing over with a bang, and just short of a million terrifically futile copy writers began to think of themselves as agitators of the public mind. They did not realize that what sold Liberty Bonds was the war and several thousand guys in France, and not Mr. Harrison M. Greeble, coming out in front of the curtain at the Bijou Dream Theater between reels and holding one chubby fist aloft calling on Heaven to witness that his Cause was Just.

  Well, the war was over – or, at any rate, we thought it was over at the time. And what was left? Mr. Greeble was left, with a hunger for exhorting in front of a curtain. Mrs. Malvey was left, with a God-given gift of organization for money-raising purposes. Mr. Henry Rolls Turbin was left, large in the conviction that he could sway great masses of people with his editorial matter and an occasional appearance on a public rostrum.

  And for properties, there remained several hundred gigantic thermometers, used for indicating the progress of the campaign, and several hundred monster dials, for the same exciting purpose. Then, of course, the customary amount of bunting and horns, and a few paper caps with mottoes in them for no purpose whatever.

  What to do with these? What to do with Mr. Greeble and Mrs. Malvey and Mr. Turbin, and the monster thermometers? Throw them away?

  But no! Here was too much talent, too much inspirational force, to allow it to die out with the coming of peace. Surely there must be some other things to raise money for! Surely our citizenry couldn’t be allowed to save up a few pennies against that silly old rainy day we hear so much about. The people had got into the custom of contributing money. They couldn’t be permitted to sink back into their old soft ways of putting it in the bank.

  So, when it came time for the Mount McKenzie Bicycle Hospital to raise its yearly $25,000, the directors had a meeting and decided that, in view of the success of the Fifth Liberty Loan drive in Lindport, it was only fair that the Bicycle Hospital should come next. So they engaged a drive expert from out of town to come in and look the ground over.

  The drive expert came, accompanied by a corps of assistants, including copy writers, camera men, poster artists, and rubbers. They pitched a big tent on the Common and began making topographical maps. They surveyed the surrounding country, measured all the public buildings, looked in at the people’s kitchen windows and had everybody vaccinated.

  Then the expert submitted a report advising that, instead of trying to raise the customary $25,000, the hospital should go out for a $3,000,000 endowment, the campaign to embrace all of Weekover County. As the expert said, “If they will stand for $25,000, they will stand for $3,000,000. It is simply a question of posters.”

  So the board of the Mount McKenzie Bicycle Hospital voted to go ahead with the proposition. With $3,000,000 they could build a new hospital, with modern, up-to-date repair shops for wornout bicycles, experimental laboratories for new bicycles, trade schools for bicycle dealers and a restroom for the woman employees, if they should ever decide to employ any women. What was left over from the $3,000,000 they could put in the bank for anything that might come up, picnics or anything at all.

  For the purposes of the campaign the expert brought up a fresh detachment of shock troops from the rear. Each of these had assigned to him the organization of one particular household in town, until every household was covered.

  The organizer moved right into the house he was assigned to, and proceeded to pep things up. He appointed the father a four-minute speaker, the mother head of the Knitting and Bandage Corps, the young son in charge of poster display for the house, and the young daughter to act as usher at the family mass meetings. Thus every house in town was organized within itself, and each given a certain quota to raise within itself to help swell the total.

  Outside of each house was placed a big thermometer, and, as the amount increased day by day, the young daughter was allowed to go out and punch up the indicator, appropriate ceremonies accompanying this service.

  Posters were drawn and stuck up over the town. One showed an old man wheeling a broken-down bicycle up a hill toward the sunset. It read: “Don’t Let This Old Man Hurt Himself Because of Faulty Gearing.” Another showed a young man looking sadly out at a window, with the legend: “Where Is Your Bicycle?” Then there were the customary slogans: “Get Behind and Push!” “Over the Top for Our Bicycles!” and “Hermanstown Takes Care of Its Bicycles. Don’t Make Lindport a Piker City!”

  The newspapers were flooded with copy from the publicity department of the drive, Sunday stories on “The Progress of the Bicycle Since 1876,” “Did Cleopatra Own the First Bicycle?” and “An Old Bicycle Tells Its Story.”

  In the news columns there were accounts of the progress of the drive in the various households, which little girl was ahead in the contest to sell dolls’ slippers, which little boy had won the day’s bean shooting, and what the principal of the Wurdle High School said to the pupils about not kicking bicycles that they saw standing against curbings.

  Then there were photographs of the committee in charge of the drive, the women’s auxiliary committee, the “Junior Drivers” and the members of the Speakers’ Bureau. During the progress of the drive the city of Paris, France, fell in and crushed two-thirds of its inhabitants, but the story was relegated to the second page under “Cable Dispatches” because the front page was devoted to the news of the next-to-last day of the drive.

  On the day before the drive ended the excitement was intense. Only $2,350,000 had been raised. The thermometers were quivering with excitement and the sch
ools were shut down at noon. Little groups of people stood on the street corners discussing the impending catastrophe. Would Lindport fail? A house-to-house canvass was made by the Boys’ Brigade, dressed up as little bandits, armed with real guns loaded with real bullets, which they aimed at people and demanded just fifty more dollars. It was all in fun, of course, but several citizens who refused were shot down like dogs.

  Then, just as it began to look as if the campaign were going to flop at $2,740,000, a man dressed as Paul Revere rode down Main Street waving a check for $250,000 from Senator Herman J. Mooter, which the committee had had up its sleeve all the time, waiting for a grand-stand finish.

  So the $3,000,000 was raised for the Mount McKenzie Bicycle Hospital, and the citizens of Lindport could look everybody but their bankers in the face. And next month, stirred by the success of the Hospital Drive, the Lindport Girls’ Outdoor Club began one for $5,000,000 to help fix up outdoors.

  A great many of these drives are legitimate enough, but the methods used in putting them over are easily adaptable for any purposes whatsoever. This playing on the community or club spirit to build a new wing to a gymnasium can be overdone. In colleges and schools is it particularly heinous.

  Let us say that the Feeta Theta Psi decides that their old house hasn’t got enough pool tables, so they set out to build a new house. Each graduate is appealed to in a manner which implies that if he doesn’t come across he will go down in history as “Old Crosspatch.” But the graduates can take care of themselves. Lots of them would just as soon go down in history as “Old Crosspatch” and save the five hundred dollars.

  It is the undergraduates who are bulldozed into spending father’s money by the threat that if they do not come up to scratch in their allotments there is grave danger that the free institutions of the United States of America will crumble before December, and that the work of Washington, Lincoln, and Rutherford B. Hayes will have gone for nothing. The poor kids, coerced to the point of hysteria by the drive committee, sign up for enough of the Old Man’s money to put them through Graduate School.

  Something is wrong somewhere.

  But before we close, I want to say a few words on behalf of the fund which we at the Snow Shoe League are trying to raise to keep the snow here longer in the winter. We need only $10,000,000 and we have a promise from an anonymous snowshoer of $5,000,000 if we can raise the other $5,000,000 by the next snowfall.

  Now, this is not a fly-by-night scheme and would really do a whole lot of good, and I hope that each and every one of you who read this will sit right down and make out a good, check and send it to me.

  LET’S GET TOGETHER ON THIS! LET’S GO!

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  Is the Sea Serpent

  a Myth or a Mythter?

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  Now that people are back from the seashore again we can scrutinize those reports on sea serpents! Coming after reports on budgets, taxes, and the increase in pellagra, a good sea serpent report is a relief. At least there is some ground for argument about a sea serpent.

  There was, for instance, the famous serpent seen by the members of the crew of the schooner Mrs. Ella B. Margolies off Gloucester in 1896. I will set down the excerpt from the ship’s log for what it is worth (closing price .003): “On Board Mrs. Ella B. Margolies. August 6, 1896. Lat. 24° 57' S., long. 16 ft. E. . . . Brooklyn-8; St. Louis-4. . . . Am. T. & T. 20 ½.

  “In the 4 to 6 watch, at about 5 o’clock, we observed a most remarkable fish on our lee quarter, crossing the stern in a S.W. direction. The appearance of the head, which with the back fin (or upper leg) was the only portion of the animal visible, was something similar to that of a rabbit, only without the ears. It (the animal) pursued a steady undeviating course, keeping its head horizontal with the surface of the water except when it turned to look backward as if it were flirting with something.

  “Once a small pennant was raised just above where the tail should be, a pennant which, according to the code of the sea, signified ‘Owner on Board.’”

  This same animal was seen from points along the shore at Gloucester and Bass Rock, and officials of the Odd Creatures Society took the trouble to investigate. The answers given by Roger Bivalve, a fisherman living in a lobster trap on Point Pixie, are representative as well as enlightening.

  Q. When did you first see the animal?

  A. I should say shortly after falling down on the rocks in front of my place.

  Q. At what distance?

  A. Once it was in my lap. Other times about fifty yards out.

  Q. What was its general appearance?

  A. Something awful.

  Q. Did it appear jointed or serpentine?

  A. Serpentine, by all means.

  Q. Describe its eyes and mouth.

  A. Well, its eyes were beautiful. I thought for a while that I was in love with it. Its mouth was more mocking than anything, which gave me the tip-off.

  Q. Had it fins or legs, and where?

  A. Do I have to answer that?

  Q. Did it make any sound or noise?

  A. I should say it was more of a cackle, or perhaps a laugh. I know I didn’t like it.

  Q. Do you drink?

  A. Only medicinally, and then never after I fall over.

  It is too bad that there should be this suspicion of excess drinking attached to reports of sea serpents, because I myself have a story which might help solve a great many problems in marine mystery, but I fear the effect it might have on my children’s opinion of me.

  Oh, well, I might as well get it off my chest! . . . I am not a drinking man by nature, and although on this particular day I had rubbed a little alcohol into my hair to keep the flies away, I have every reason to believe that I was in full possession of my senses. (I don’t suppose that I can say full possession, for I have three more payments to make before they are really mine.) I had been talking to an old friend whom I hadn’t seen for years, and the next time we looked at the clock it was Friday; so I said: “Well, Harry, what do you say we call it a week and knock off?” Harry was agreeable, so we went and bought two hats to put on so that we wouldn’t have to go home bareheaded.

  I know that this sounds fishy, but just as sure as I am standing here at this minute, I looked down the length of the hat store, and there, right by the litde door where the clerks went in and out, something caught my eye – no mean trick in itself, as my eye was not in a roving mood right then, as I was concentrating on a brown fedora which I fortunately did not buy. It was as if something with a long tail had just disappeared around the corner of the door.

  I thought nothing of it at first, thinking that it was probably a salesman who had a long tail and who was going about his business. But the more I thought it over the stranger it seemed to me that I had not noticed a salesman with a long tail before, as we had been in the shop several hours by this time.

  So I excused myself politely and tiptoed down to the door where I had seen the disappearing object. It was quite a long walk, as I got into another store by mistake and had to inquire my way back, but soon I reached the rear of the original hat store and looked out into the workroom. There, stretched across an ironing board where they had been reblocking old derbies, I saw a sight which made my blood run cold.

  Beginning at one end of the ironing board and stretching across it and off the other end into the window –

  I guess that I was right in the first place. I never should have begun to tell it. You wouldn’t understand!

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  Swat the

  Tsk-Tsk Midge!

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  Among the least flashy, and least interesting, of the movements looking toward the betterment of the human race comes our intensive campaign in the Uganda for the elimination of the tsk-tsk midge, or Hassenway’s crab-fly. The tsk-tsk midge (or Hassenway’s crab-fly) is something like the tsetse fly, except that it uses the hyphen. It is a very tiny fly, with plain features, and wa
s first discovered by Dr. Ambercus Hassenway while he was looking for something else.

  For a long time the residents of the Uganda had been conscious of the fact that something was wrong with them, but couldn’t quite decide what it was. They were nervous and fidgety and likely to break down and cry if you pointed a finger at them, until it finally got so that they would just walk about all day rubbing two sticks together and looking out of the corners of their eyes at people. This was bad for business.

  It was not until Dr. Hassenway isolated the tsk-tsk midge and had a good talk with it that the Ugandans realized what the trouble was. They had been accepting the tsk-tsk midges all along, thinking that they were caraway seeds and rather liking them. Dr. Hassenway pointed out their error and showed them that this little animal was probably the cause of all their malaise, and, in recognition of his services to them, they insisted on renaming the tsk-tsk midge Hassenway’s crab-fly. Dr. Hassenway protested that he really had done nothing to deserve this honor, that he already had had an oak tree blight named after him (“Hassenway’s leaf-itch”), and that he was going home in a couple of days anyway. But the natives insisted, and Hassenway’s crab-fly it was.

  Then began the campaign to eliminate it. Dr. Hassenway is said to have remarked, a little bitterly: “Why bother to change its name if you are going to eliminate it right away?” But he took the thing in good part and entered into the game with a will. In fact, it was he who threw the first midge in the opening battle.