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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.
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