High School of Commerce - Tradesman Yearbook (Boston, MA)

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THE TRADESMAN Then we slipped down the trembling stairs-almost as bad as those in front of the State House of Incorrection-with great caution, but Bones -may his tribe decrease-slipped and fell upon the stairs, and the stairs, unable to stand beneath the fall, collapsed like a house of cards, hurling Bones and me upon the floor. By some miracle the Hoor did not give way, but stood fairly firm beneath the impact. Stumbling to my feet, and letting loose some sulphurous language, I Ttaggered through the door, and into the waiting bus, a product of Ford's iumor. Bones, who had alighted upon his bean-and was, therefore, uninjured, cranked the benzine buggy, and hopped in beside me, nimbly clearing the door which didn't exist. The machine woke up-it actually did, occasionally--and we were off in a cloud of dust and a rattle of loosely jointed machinery. Why, I bellowed above the din caused by our laboring chariot-it knocked worse than a politician describing a rival candidate- Why did you tell me to answer the phone, and then do it yourself ? Just caution! roared Bones, his voice mingling with the curses of a lamp-post leaner, whose support had been knocked from under him by our ambitious bus. I thought some of my enemies might be trying to kill me by telephone, so, knowing you would be glad to take the risk, I asked you to answer. When nothing happened I took it myself-your stupidity would have given our would-be client a poor opinion of our efficiency. REEL TWG Hidden Clues in No Man's Land Bones headed our product of Ford's eccentric imagination towards the great Narrow Spaces, Where Men Are Men and Murder a pastime . . . that is to say, South Boston. We soon arrived at the jungles of South Boston--a live mile trip com- pleted in the snappy time of three hours. Reaching one of the best streets -the car could barely manage the ruts and hills-the machine stopped of its own will before something which bore a faint resemblance to a house. I fell off the car from my position on the spare tire. where I had been ever since a part of the car fell off two minutes after we had started upon our epic trip. Bones politely kicked open the door of the house, and we stalked in, while in the streets echoed the screams of some unfortunate being put to death-which is the genial South Bostoner's idea of a nice time. We were greeted by a bimbo whose face was hidden behind a tangled outgrowth of wiry hair, he gave the impression of a wild animal lurking behind the shrubbery. His very appearance did much to convince me of the possibility of Darwinls theory. Hello, said Bones, I am TI-IE Mr. Bones, and this --he kicked me on the shins- is my assistant, MacAroni. Now, just whatls the trouble ? The other tore his hairg the false wig fell off. My namef' he sobbed, is Peter Pickle, and my rat-trap -a tear fell from his glass eye- hath been stolen! I-Ia! Ah! I-Ia-ah ! quoth Bones, trying to look wise-a difficult task. . Say,,' queried Peter gently, reaching for a baseball bat. Why this haw-haw stuff, you--? 9

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THE TRADESMAN NOTHING BUT HOKUM REEL ONE Boneheads Both Brasstop Bones, the wonder sleuth-the wonder comes from the pub- lic's letting him live-and none other than I were seated in our chairless fiat, saturating our tonsils with some Anti-Volstead stuff which Brasstop, in his role of detective, had confiscated. Being a detective has its ad- vantages. I was perusing one of Rafael Sabatini's worst crimes, entitled, The Feather Pushersu and Bones was with difficulty digesting an authoritative work on What the Well Blessed Sleuth Should 'Ware', and trying to look intelligent at the same time. He found it hard work. Coming to a par- ticularly complicated paragraph in a chapter headed: Where to Find Clues When There Aren't Any, he soon became hopelessly lost in a long contortion of many-syllabled, meaningless words. I-Ie heaved a heavy sigh, which was echoed by our phone. I Bones instinctively reached for his revolver, but remembering that it was empty-clue to the fact that he had emptied the six bullets in a traf- fic cop's body that day-he placed it back in his shoe. Answer the phone! he snarled. I did. I-Ie1lo! quoth I. A sweet, gentle voice, reeking of garlic and delivered with force enough to make the receiver tremble, smote my ear. Izis Mr. Bones speaking? I grew hot under the collar. To be inistaken for Bones, that human mis- take, that menace to civilization, thati. It was an insult! UNO! I roared. UNO!! Disease! NO! Bones leapt up, kicked my feet from under me, and grappled with the phone. Soon the wire was burning with his alleged English, which is of the crushed variety. ' 'TI-Iallo . . . Yeh, this Nowhere 123456789 . . . TI-IE Mr. Bones Speak- ing . . . Huh? . . . alright . . . sure . . . s'lunk, nobody! He hung up, and turned to me, eager-faced. QI-Evidently, he saw a chance for a free feed.j A mystery! he said briskly and slipped before the bureau, looking keenly into the mirror thereon, which cracked for the third time. CI-Ie had only used it twice beforej 1 With the skill of a Commerce student disguising himself as a female for a Commerce Revue, he slipped on a wig and false beardg not to men- tion a false noseg darkened his skin with a mysterious concoction of ba- nana-oil and applesauceg went into several convulsions behind the bureau, and finally crawled out from under the carpet, disguised in a fashion that would have made the astute Mr. Nicholas Carter shoot one of his innum- erable assistants, just out of pure pique. I-Ie jammed on his derby, grabbed three revolvers. snatched a sword- cane, and wrapped his mitts about a few bottles of poison. So did I, with the addition of a knife slipped down the back of my neck. For both Bones and I are firm believers in Napoleonis famous outburst A pound of pre- vention is worth 1000 pounds of policemen. 8

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TI-IE. TRADESMAN Pm not laughing, said Bones, hastily, 661,111 only thinking- I started incredulously. What! I cried, thinking!! Where, asked Bones, ignoring his assistant, where was the rat-trap last seen? Right here!,' Pickle pointed to about six square feet of Hoor which were now entirely covered by Bones' huge feet. I was gonna put a chunk of Limburger in it. I went to get a piece. When I came back, ,twas gone! Ah, woe is me! He gnashed his false teeth so furiously that they fell out. Bones eyed the six square feet with what he fondly believed to be an eagle eye. Suddenly, without a sound, except for a loud, piercing cry that cracked the cuspidor, he leapt upon the floor, squinting at -it through his favorite-and only-instrument, the magnifying glass. He sniffed about excitedly, and his nose was so long and strong that, like a vacuum cleaner, it swept up all the dust within a radius of ten feet. I knew it would not harm him, however, for Bones has a stomach like the inside of a concrete mixer. He even drinks European coffee! Our client looked on, a look of keen interest in his glass eye. Bugosh! quoth he, I always heard as how Mr. Bones could disguise himself as anything from an elephant to a cuspidor, but I never believed it. Yet here heis, a human vacuum cleaner. Even if he doesn't get back the rat-trap, I can have him sweep all the Hoors, eh ? He looked at me. He is a marvelous masqueraderf' I remarked, emptying the bottle of banana-oil, and he can disguise himself as anything ranging from a mon- key or Tony the VVonder Hoss to Duke the Wonder Dog or Fido the Won- der Fish. Bah! Bunk I Pickle made his meaning clearer, Banana oil V' 'Tis true, ass,', I growled. All he does is improve his face-not an easy task-and . . . Here I plugged the gas lead. The subject of my eulogy was conspicuous by his absence. , Pickle-he certainly had the habitual appearance of one who has swal- lowed one, also noticed it. Egad, quoth he in the tones of one announcing a great discovery, the sleuth has gone! and he peered about the place, convincing himself that nothing had disappeared along with Bones. A simple, trusting soul, this Mr. Pickle. fTo be concludedj . THE MANIACS. By john B. Burke I was captured, there was no getting away from the fact, and I could not have chosen a worse band than this one to fall into. To make it worse, these men were maniacs. I cannot clearly remember many of the circum- stances preceding my capture. It seems that as I was walking along, a man with a heavy black beard, dark bushy eyebrows and coal black eyes, stepped out from behind a tree and asked me to direct him to the nearest town. While I was explaining, several other figures emerged and were beginning to surround me. I at once suspected a trap, and my hand flashed to my hip pocket. Suddenly I felt a sharp blow on the head and then-oblivion. 10