Читать книгу Short Circuits - Stephen Leacock - Страница 17

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Passing through the tunnels and leaving behind us the surging metropolis of New York, we find ourselves traversing the flat, marshy land of Eastern New Jersey, where ONE HUNDRED ROOMS EACH WITH A BATH can be had from $1.50 up. The scenery is not without its charm, the sunken valley of the Hackensack and the Passaic, the waving rushes and meandering streams, suggest to the poetic mind, WHY NOT TRY GRIP-TIGHT GARTERS?

The ground rises, a varied growth of elm and oak replaces the lowland flats, and we find ourselves in the rich farm land of New Jersey filled with FLUID BEEF, which acts directly on the liver. Here HUMPO may be had for breakfast, and mixed with a little VITAMINGO will probably prolong our life for twenty years.

Nor need we do anything further than--seated just where we are in our luxurious club-car--merely remember the name HUMPO, which in any case comes on every packet and without which the packet is not genuine. Indeed, a simple way is to ask the porter to be good enough to remember HUMPO.

But stop--in our absorption in the view of HUMPO, we have lost an opportunity to BUILD OUR OWN HOME by merely paying a hundred dollars down.

*****

We are passing now through historic country. We do not need our guide-book to tell us that it is through this beautiful farm district of New Jersey that Washington advanced, slowly driving the English before him. He made his way between a big CONDENSED MILK board and a UNIQUE RADIO SET FOR 238 DOLLARS. He picked his steps with evident caution, avoiding COATS AND PANTS FOR MEN OF ALL SIZES, for his trained strategic eye detected an opening between CHOW CHOW PICKLES and MALTED EXTRACT OF CODFISH.

This gap had apparently been overlooked by General Howe, and Washington threw himself into it; a notice on a large board, erected evidently by some historical society, shows that he probably enabled himself to do this by taking exercises on the floor of his bedroom for not more than ten minutes every morning with the new MUSSELBILD APPARATUS, which would have been sent to Washington by mail on receipt of a money-order or which he could have obtained from his local dealer.

The interesting fact in this connection is that the British General Howe, had he known it, could also have secured a MUSSELBILD from his local dealer, as they are handled in all parts of the country. Had Howe done this and had they both used the SLIDE-EASY SUSPENDERS that are on each side of the line of the American advance, the struggle of the Revolution might have moved up and down without the slightest friction and with no sense of fatigue.

But look, our train is moving into Trenton, one of the most historic spots in America, where we realize with a thrill by looking out the window that if we need a slight tonic we can secure it from any local dealer for nineteen cents. Our swiftly moving train is now rushing along the shores of the Delaware, and we can see the very spot where Washington and his men crossed in the rude December of 1777; we can shrewdly guess from the notices that have been reared to mark the spot that they used NON-SKID CHAINS, which prevented them from skidding or slipping, and that they had at least an opportunity to reserve rooms with or without baths on the American plan.

We realize as our train rushes forward that we are approaching Philadelphia; rooms with baths, breakfast foods, pills, and non-skid garters multiply on every hand. If we decide to buy a COMPLETE NOBBY SUIT, with an extra pair of pants, we are going to have an opportunity to get it. Or should we need, in order to view the historic spots of interest connected with America's first capital, a SIT-SOFT COLLAR, there are men here, local dealers, who will be glad to sell it to us.

*****

We have rushed past the city of the great Franklin (inventor, no doubt, of the Franklin shoe, the Franklin underwear, and the Franklin adjustable monkey-wrench for stout women), and are now speeding through the open country again. Here for a short time the scenery becomes somewhat monotonous: there is nothing on either hand but deep green woods, open meadows filled with hay (of what brand and whether good for breakfast we are not informed), and the rolling hills and shaded valleys of the Appalachian slope.

Now and then in the distance we catch a glimpse of the sea--unadvertised, it appears, and put to no use whatever. We cross on an endless bridge the broad flood of the Susquehanna, an unused river, so far as we can judge, lying in the gloomy sunshine with no touch of color more brilliant than the mere blue of the sky or the poor green of the woods.

*****

The scene improves as we go forward. The notices of the boards are at a little distance now and we cannot read the words, but the pictures still appear. We are passing through a country of bulls. This is, this must be--Washington! With our faces eagerly set to the window, we draw near to the National Capital; the speed of the train somewhat confuses and blurs our vision and mixes the imagery of the scenery together.

But we infer even from our hurried view of the outskirts of the capital that if any bull wants silk hosiery that neither rips nor tears, he is exactly in the right place for it; and that Washington is exactly in the center of the yeast district, the canned soup area, that all the great modern medical inventions such as HUMPO, JUMPO, and ANTIWHEEZE are sold there, and that we can get all the soap we want;--in short, look about us--here are Rooms with Beds at $1.50! Meals à la carte, Suspenders, Garters, Ice Cream in the Block, Radios, Gramophones, Elixers of Life, Funeral Directors Open All Night, Real Estate, Bungalows, Breakfast Foods--

In truth--this is America indeed.