Page
MUTT AND JEFF
M'LOVE, I CAN'T STAND HERE AND WATCH” YOU SLAVE OVER THOSE DISHES
IN THIS HEAT!]
IM GOING OUT ON THE BACK
PORCH!
7-7.
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THE CHINA MAIL, AUGUST 11, 1988.
By BUD FISHER
A Good Job Well done!
CHENGTU
a
KWEIYANG
CHUNGKING
HONG KONG
KWEILIN
WUCHOW
ICHANG -
SHASI
HANKOW
CHANGSHA
"I got the order, sir-because I was there first. Our letters and samples also arriped ahead of our competitors
because they went by air too." Modern business requires speedy com- munication-Travel, mail and ship by C. N. A. C. I
CHINA NATIONAL AVIATION CORPORATION
GENERAL TRAFFIC
AGENTS FOR
PANAMERICAN
ZEEWAYS SYSTEMT
·APB8·
Here's Luck!
EWO
BEER
G. FALCONER & CO. (HONG KONG LTD.)
WATCHMAKERS & JEWELLERS, DIAMOND MERCHANTS,
UNION BUILDING (opposite G.P,0.).
ADMIRALTY CHARTS,
OCULARS and TELESCOPES, AUTICAL INSTRUMENTS,
„Manufactu
THE DAILY SHORT STORY
Pleasant Summer
TROUBLE began at the Welcome U
Do something! Ha! What could I do? Dude ranch when Johnny Summer. Well, the only thing I could think of talk to Sprout.. Sprout, it arrived. Johnny was a fiction writer, was to who had come West to study the coun- seemed, was tickled to death with the egging try and its people and maybe do a lo- whole business. He'd been cal colour story or two.
those kids on and handing 'em stories about gunfights that the wildest of the wild west mags wouldn't publish.
That was all right; it probably would have worked out fine, but the unhappy fact was that we already had a writer.: Well, air, that gave me another idea. Her name was Martha Pleasant, and I wrote to a friend of mine in New she had come to the Welcome U with York, which is where both Johnny and exactly the same idea as had Johnny. Martha come from, and I had my friend Now you'd think that two writers do some investigating. The result of could get along. I mean, you take a the investigation proved that neither couple of ditch diggers or stock brok- Martha nor Johnny had ever sold ers or carpenters or doctors-they'd story.
a
get along right. But not writers. Not This, I thought, was a hot one. Here at least, Johnny Summer and Martha they were fighting like cats and dogs, Pleasant.
and neither of 'em had ever sold a Rivalry sprung up at once. You see, story. Well, I thought, here's some- there was one old codger on the ranch thing. So I got hold of Sprout, and I named Sprout Simons who had lived poured forth and Sprout agreed to do during the frontier days. Не had his bit.
So the next time we went on a cam- drooping mustaches and a battered old
hat and a six-shooter with nine not- ping trip we arranged for it to look ches cut in the handle. He talked with like Martha was in danger, which reac- a drawl and at the drop of a hat. In tion on Johnny-was just like we ex- fact, I've heard him talk when no hats pected. He come galloping to the res- dropped at all.
cue, and you could tell by the way them Peter Rae he owns the Welcome U two looked at each other that they -kept Sprout on the payroll to provide didn't hate one another at all. what he called atmosphere. Now, And right then Sprout and me come Sprout may have exuded this so-called out with our big idea. Perhaps, we atmosphere in large and plentiful suggested, if they collaborated on one quantities. I don't know, nor care. of these stories they might be able to
But
By Vic Yardman
to u boys, Sprout was just a sell it. Two heads are better than one, mangy, tiresome old wind-bag who told and so forth."
a flock of lies about chasing Indians Johnny and Martha looked at each and bad men and participating in cat- other and it was plain that here was a tle raids and narrow escapes.
solution to their problem. They could But, Peter must have known his call off the feud without either of them business, because the dudes flocked losing face. around Sprout like he was passing out We watched with interest the result $1000 bills.
of that collaboration. Toward the end The day Martha Pleasant arrived she of the summer they finished up the heard about Sprout and looked him up. story were writing and shipped it air After a half-hour or so she came back mail to a publisher with a letter saying to the house and her eyes were glow- that the two authors would share joint- ing. She acted like she'd discovered ly in the proceeds. The publisher saw a placer deposit and staked out a mil- the humour of the thing and shipped lion-dollar claim for herself.
the story back air mail.
י.
It was the next day that Johnny Well, sir, things looked worse than Summer landed at the ranch. An hour ever. Johnny was on the point of after he got there Martha saw him blaming Martha, und Martha on the talking with Sprout, and the way she point of blaming Johnny. Likely fire- acted you'd think Johnny had muscled works would have resulted, but for the in on a business deal involving millions. fact that the Rev. Samnel Poker and Well, sir, you never did see anything his wife arrived at the ranch about like the way them two carried on. then for a shöft vacation, and sight of They hated each other the way a road- him gave Sprout an idea which he sug- runner hates a rattler. They watched gested to Johnny and Martha. each other like hawks. If one of 'em thought it over and once more saw a They 80 much as said "Good morning" to solution to their problem. Sprout, the other'd come running up So Johnny Summer, and Martha and demand to know what Sprout had Pleasant were married there on the given out by way of a story.
ranch, and all I can say is I hope they
Then, when we'd all be sitting around have a pleasant summer next year talking, Johnny would come up and somewhere else besides on the Wel- stand listening, and pretty soon he'd come U.
reach into his pocket, produce pencil (Copyright 1938, by The Associated and paper and jot down a note. Mar- Newspapers);
tha would flare up like a mother hen
and accuse him of cheating,
"I promoted this idea," she'd "Any suggestions that resı 't ming."
Bay.
are
"Well, woll," Johnny would answer sarcastically, are ideas something you buy these days like eggs?"
..
HANKOW IN
NO DANGER
Hankow, To-day.
The summer wore on and things be- gan to get unpleasant around the ranch.-Hankow is in no danger of be- mean other guests, at first amused, ing flooded, according to inform began to get fed up with the way these ation from the Yangtze River two kids were acting. That was bad
for business, and Peter, not wishing to Water Conservancy Bureau, offend anyone, called me aside and al A considerable drop in the lowed that because I was foreman it water level in the Yangtze has was up to me to do something toward been registered in the past few
Altuation and to be tact-
days. Central Newa.
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