Pipefuls

Pipefuls, by Christopher Morley

The Project Gutenberg eBook, Pipefuls, by Christopher Morley
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Pipefuls
Author: Christopher Morley

Release Date: September 21, 2007 [eBook #22699]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK
PIPEFULS***
E-text prepared by Audrey Longhurst, Marcia Brooks, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
(http://www.pgdp.net)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which
includes the original illustrations. See 22699-h.htm or 22699-h.zip:

(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/2/6/9/22699/22699-h/22699-h.htm) or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/2/6/9/22699/22699-h.zip)

PIPEFULS
* * * * *
Other Books by the Author
PARNASSUS ON WHEELS
THE HAUNTED BOOKSHOP
SHANDYGAFF
MINCE PIE
KATHLEEN
SONGS FOR A LITTLE HOUSE
THE ROCKING HORSE
HIDE AND SEEK
TRAVELS IN PHILADELPHIA
* * * * *

PIPEFULS
by
CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
[Illustration]

Illustrated by Walter Jack Duncan

Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1920
Copyright, 1920, by Doubleday, Page & Company All Rights Reserved,
Including That of Translation into Foreign Languages, Including the
Scandinavian

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO THREE MEN
HULBERT FOOTNER EUGENE SAXTON WILLIAM ROSE
BENÉT
BECAUSE, IF I MENTIONED ONLY ONE OF THEM, I WOULD
HAVE TO WRITE BOOKS TO INSCRIBE TO THE OTHER TWO

PREFACE
Sir Thomas Browne said that Eve was "edified out of the rib of Adam."
This little book was edified (for the most part) out of the ribs of two
friendly newspapers, The New York Evening Post and The
Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger. To them, and to The Bookman,
Everybody's, and The Publishers' Weekly, I am grateful for permission
to reprint.
Tristram Shandy said, "When a man is hemm'd in by two indecorums,
and must commit one of 'em let him chuse which he will, the world will
blame him." Now it is one indecorum to let this collection of small
sketches go out (as they do) unrevised and just as they assaulted the
defenceless reader of the daily prints; and the other indecorum would
be to take fragments of this kind too gravely, and attempt by more
careful disposition of their pallid members to arrange them into some
appearance of painless decease. As Gilbert Chesterton said (I wish I
could say, on a similar occasion): "Their vices are too vital to be

improved with a blue pencil, or with anything I can think of, except
dynamite."
These sketches gave me pain to write; they will give the judicious
patron pain to read; therefore we are quits. I think, as I look over their
slattern paragraphs, of that most tragic hour--it falls about 4 P. M. in
the office of an evening newspaper--when the unhappy compiler tries
to round up the broodings of the day and still get home in time for
supper. And yet perhaps the will-to-live is in them, for are they not a
naked exhibit of the antics a man will commit in order to earn a living?
In extenuation it may be pleaded that none of them are so long that they
may not be mitigated by an accompanying pipe of tobacco.
THE AUTHOR.
Roslyn, Long Island, July, 1920.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Preface vii
On Making Friends 3
Thoughts on Cider 10
One-Night Stands 18
The Owl Train 25
Safety Pins 29
Confessions of a "Colyumist" 34
Moving 42
Surf Fishing 48

"Idolatry" 52
The First Commencement Address 60
The Downfall of George Snipe 63
Meditations of a Bookseller 66
If Buying a Meal Were Like Buying a House 71
Adventures in High Finance 74
On Visiting Bookshops 78
A Discovery 83
Silas Orrin Howes 91
Joyce Kilmer 97
Tales of Two Cities 109
I. Philadelphia: An Early Train Ridge Avenue The University and the
Urchin Pine Street Pershing in Philadelphia Fall Fever Two Days
Before Christmas In West Philadelphia Horace Traubel
II. New York: The Anatomy of Manhattan Vesey Street Brooklyn
Bridge Three Hours for Lunch Passage from Some Memoirs First
Lessons in Clowning House Hunting Long Island Revisited On Being
in a Hurry Confessions of a Human Globule Notes on a Fifth Avenue
Bus Sunday Morning Venison Pasty Grand Avenue, Brooklyn
On Waiting for the Curtain to Go Up 236
Musings of John Mistletoe 240
The World's Most Famous Oration 242
On Laziness 244

Teaching the Prince to Take Notes 249
A City Notebook 253
On Going to Bed 270

PIPEFULS

ON MAKING FRIENDS
[Illustration]
Considering that most friendships are made by mere hazard, how is it
that men find themselves equipped and fortified with just the friends
they need? We have heard of men who asserted that they would like to
have more money,