68 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEKPF.R, 



March 



THE FiN DE SiECLE DAMSEL. 



She has hair that is fluffy, straight, banged or 



half cnrled ; 

 Has a parasol, oft by her deft fingers twirled. 

 She has eyes either brown or black, gray or 



true blue; 

 Has a neat fitting glove and a still neater shoe. 

 She has cheeks that make bitter the envious 



rose. 

 She has trunks upon trunks of the costliest 



clothes. 



She has jewels that shine as the stars do at 



night, 

 ^nd she dances as Ariel dances— or might. 

 She's accustomed to sitting on rocks in the 



glen. 

 She's also accustomed to sitting on men. 

 There's not much in her brain, but there's 



heaven in her smile. 

 Her profession is love, and she flirts all the 



while. 



— Munsey's Magazine. 



A BICYCLE THIEF. 



A certain news agency had telegraphed 

 abroad the report that I am in Switzer- 

 land, not for the benefit of my health, 

 but for the purpose of stealing bicycles, 

 and they added that I was an expert 

 thief, and, for a time at least, I had 

 succeeded in baffling the most praise- 

 worthy attempts of the police of two 

 towns to capture me. 



While this statement is naturally flat- 

 tering to me it is nevertheless a libel, 

 and, in fact, if I cared to use strong 

 language I might go so far as to take 

 the last syllable away from the word 

 "libel." 



The whole trouble arose through 

 Switzerland not having a proper lan- 

 guage of its own, that hilly country pre- 

 ferring to express what few thoughts it 

 has in a mixture of French, German and 

 Italian, depending on what particular 

 canton you happen to be in. They say 

 that the Swiss are natural linguists. 

 Unfortunately they are. Any combina- 

 tion of sounds you may make means 

 fiomething to any Swiss to whom you 

 happen to be talking, for he knows so 

 many languages that you are sure to hit 

 one of them, and so you convey ideas to 

 him that you had no thought of express- 

 ing. 



October weather is lovely in Switzer- 

 land. Most of the visitors have then 

 gone, prices come down one-half, and 

 the air is sweet and cool, with usually 

 a cloudless sky. 



Under these circumstances 1 thougJbt 

 it would be a nice thing, as the roads 

 were good and the scenery picturesque, 

 to take a bicycle tour right around Lake 

 Thun, beginning at the town which 

 gives the lake its name, going around 

 the north side of the lake to Interlaken 

 and returning by the south shore. 



The hotel keeper told me that if I 

 went up the street, turned to the right, 

 went under an arcade until I came to a 

 tunnel, penetrated that and emerged on 

 another street, turned to the left and 

 kept on I would come to the shop of a 

 man who would let me have a bicycle 

 on hire by the day or the hour. I fol- 

 lowed the directions as closely as possi- 

 ble and thought I recognized the shop 

 because a bicycle was leaning against 

 the wall. The owner was leaning 

 against the doorway, looking at the bi- 

 cycle outside. The following conversa- 

 tion in many languages took place be- 

 tween us : 



"Habeu sie un bicyclette a louer?" I 

 opened on him with the above impartial 

 mixture of German and French. It 

 seems he understood me to ask if that 

 was his bicycle, whereupon he replied 

 in four languages : 



"Yaw, yaw, oui, yes, se. " 



Then, throwing in a bit of Italian, I 

 led off with : 



"Quanta costa la machine a la hoor, 

 Oder per tag?" 



Now, I submit that to any educated 

 person, or even to a university man, 

 this sentence said as plainly as print, 

 "How much do you want for this ma- 

 chine by the hour or the day?" I tried 

 afterward to get the magistrate to see 

 this, but he, not knowing Italian, shied 

 at the very beginning of the phrase. 

 The owner of the bicycle on oath de- 

 clares that he thought I asked how 

 much the bicycle had cost him. He says 

 that he answered he paid 500 francs for 

 that brute of a machine, made in 

 France, while I understood him to agree 

 to let me have it for 5 francs a day, 

 which was cheap. I was in a hurry to 

 be off and was afraid he might repent 

 his offer, so I said it was all right, and 

 I would take it, whereupon, without 

 further parley, I wheeled the bicycle 

 into the middle of the road, sprang on 

 its buck and was off, leaving the aston- 

 ished man standing by his door, too 

 thunderstruck, it seems, to make any 



