"Greg and Jim" – The Work of Greg Clark and Jimmie Frise

This Way to the Door!

On May 11, 2024

***But the sailor just put his knee under me and lifted me loose from the hold I had on the upright bars.***

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, May 12, 1945.

“War,” remarked Jimmie Frise, is always followed by a sissy period.”

“Ridiculous,” I asserted.

“The last war,” recalled Jim, “if you remember, was immediately followed by the jazz age. Every war in history has been followed by a sort of reaction, a sort of let-down. You would think the return of the soldiers would result in the whole country being revitalized and masculinized by the reception of so many tough old soldiers back into the community. But it isn’t the fact.”

“I don’t believe it,” I protested.

“Just cast your memory back to the last war,” said Jim. “Don’t you recollect how we slid almost without a ripple back into civilian life? It stands to reason. After five years of army life the boys can’t get too much of the soft things of civilian life. Besides, their womenfolk pamper them. The government, the city fathers, the big business organizations, everybody is making a big fuss about reestablishment. The first thing you know our big, rough, tough soldiers are cuddled right down into civilian life. And you’d never know they had ever left off a firecracker in their lives.

“It won’t be that way this time,” I asserted firmly. “This has been a different war from all others…”¹

“Wait and see,” smiled Jim. “Everything is being planned. The skids are being greased. The downy beds are being prepared. The fullest preparations are being made to smother the returning soldier in comfort.”

“After the last war,” I cried, “it was a scandal the way the veteran was treated. Why, don’t you remember the Great War Veterans’ associations² and the mass meetings to protest the way the poor devils were being mistreated…”

“That was only a handful,” stated Jim. “The vast majority of returned men were skillfully snuggled away, so that the veterans’ associations never could get enough strength to make any real disturbance.”

“The boys will be wiser this time,” I insisted.

“Wait and see,” repeated Jim darkly. “If there is one thing governments fear – and I mean all governments, including city and county councils and provincial governments – it is the return of a solid body of soldiers from a war. Caesar said it was easy to raise an army, but an awful job to disband one. It has been true throughout the centuries. Not only do governments fear the return of a solid block of troops, but business and industry and finance also fear it. Trade unions fear it. Bankers fear it. The whole civilian organization of a nation gets into a panic at the thought of the majority of its first-class manhood returning from war in a solid mass. After a big war, Caesar always used to contrive a series of little wars so that he could disband his army little by little and scatter it to various parts of the empire rather than let it, come home to Rome en masse.”

“Why should they fear the return of the nation’s best manhood?” I demanded indignantly.

“Look,” said Jim. “If you had spent your whole life and a vast amount of money fixing the world up the way you like it, how would you like to see a tidal wave of strong, healthy, hungry, ambitious young men coming sweeping your way? Especially if you felt a sense of immense obligation to those same healthy, hungry, ambitious young men?”

“I think,” I submitted, “that the end of a war ought to be celebrated by a nation-wide epidemic of resignations. There should be set aside, three months after Victory Day, a special day of national resignation, on which all presidents, managers, superintendents and foremen should publicly hand in their resignations to their various businesses. All public men should resign. All mayors, ministers of government, members of parliaments. All directors of businesses. And all these jobs would automatically be given to the logical choice among the returning veterans of the victorious war. Among the generals, brigadiers, colonels and senior officers of the army are men qualified in almost every line of business and every profession to take over. Among the junior officers, sergeant-majors and non-commissioned officers of the three services are young men from practically every kind of business and industry who could step right into the jobs of foreman and superintendent.”

A Conspiracy Afoot

“A fat chance of that,” laughed Jim. “That’s just what I am trying to tell you. It is the fear of all these well-placed and comfortably situated people all over the nation, that constitutes this widespread conspiracy now afoot to bring the soldiers home in dribs and drabs and smother them in kindness and comfort. Not only does nobody want to resign. They want to see 500,000 ex-servicemen come back home and sink into the scheme of things-as-they-are without so much as a ripple.”

“What do you mean by conspiracy?” I inquired sharply.

“Well, all this stuff you read in the papers and hear on the radio,” said Jimmie, “advising people how to handle their boys when they get home. You would think, to listen to these lectures, that all our boys are going to be a little wacky when they get home. Unbalanced. Suffering from their terrible experiences, they are likely to be quite irrational.”

“Well?” I said.

“Don’t you see,” cried Jimmie, “what a lovely scheme that is to discredit the boys when they get home? If they have any disturbing ideas, their families will think they are just a little shell-wacky and soothe them and pay no attention. The madder the boys get, the more their families will try to smother them with kindness and comfort, thinking they are unbalanced.”

“Oho,” I said.

“Suppose the boys,” went on Jim, “have worked out some pretty sound and advanced ideas about what is wrong with the world. They’ve seen Europe. They’ve learned at first hand what a lot of the things that are wrong with the world really consist of. But the minute they try to express these ideas, their families and friends will have been advised to pay no attention – the dear boys are just a little bomb-biffy.”

“What a dirty scheme!” I snorted.

“Just wait,” gloated Jim, “and see the jazz age the real owners of this world will stage for the boys on their return this time. Last war there were no subversive beliefs rampant in the world. You couldn’t call the leaders of the Great War Veterans of the last war bolsheviks. That word hadn’t been popularly introduced in those days. This time there are a lot of subversive ideas loose in the world. So the champions of Things-As-They-Were are pretty worried. They are looking around for names to call the agitators of tomorrow. Bolshevik is all worn out.”

“Jim,” I cried, “we old veterans ought to reorganize and get a big strong association ready to help the boys on their return!”

“Alas,” said Jim, “90 per cent. of us old veterans are long since dug in on the side of Things-As-They-Were. We’re just as worried over the return of all those 500,000 healthy, ambitious young men as anybody else. Rather, than us rebuilding big, powerful, last-war veteran associations, I expect the new returning veterans will simply take over the old associations lock, stock and barrel.”

“Then,” I pointed out, “the boys will have a solid body…”

“Yeah,” sighed Jim, “90 per cent. of them will be snuggled back into civilian life and couldn’t be persuaded to attend a veterans meeting for love or money.”

“What time is it?” I inquired.

“It’s time we were back at the office,” said Jim, glancing at his watch.

So we hustled down the street and boarded the street car.

As has been noticeable lately, there is an ever-increasing number of real soldiers scattered among us. In the downtown streets and in the street cars and buses you can pick out the returned veterans from among the uninitiated soldiers we have been familiar with all these past years.

The veteran soldier has a look all his own. He doesn’t need that colored square patch on his shoulder to identify him. There is all the difference between him and the home-front soldier that there is between a new book and an old book. Or between a brand new squeaky pair of shoes and a lovely old pair of shoes with a sort of deep shine on them. Or between a new hat and an old hat. They are tender to look upon.

Jimmie and I got seats, though the car was crowded. A couple of wounded soldiers got on at Bloor St. coming from the hospital, but we had no chance to give up our seats to them. Ten people were ahead of us. Eight of them were soldiers.

Generous and Gallant

Now, you don’t go offering your seat to a strapping big soldier in apparent perfect health.

But the sight of those other soldiers so promptly jumping up to give their seats to two of the boys with stiff legs sort of warmed us up. We felt generous and gallant.

Down the car aisle came two ladies. They were neither young ladies nor elderly ladies. They were Mrs. In-betweens.

They were all dressed up very smartly, and had those dizzy little handbags that women carry when they are going to a movie rather than shopping. They were obviously out for a time.

And they looked very self-conscious, as only Mrs. In-between can, as they sidled past the several soldiers. For the newly returned soldier can’t seem ever to get enough of an eyeful of his own fair sex here back home.

As the ladies came level with Jimmie and me, they paused in their airy flight. And nobody can float through space quite so noticeably airy as these Mrs. In-betweens, neither young, nor elderly.

I was on the outside. I worked out and stood up. Lifting my hat gallantly, I said:

“Have a seat, lady.”

Jimmie was also squirming out.

The two ladies drew back and stared indignantly at us.

Jimmie and I stood back, to allow the ladies our seat.

They haughtily lifted their shoulders, turned their backs and moved slightly away.

They exchanged a withering glance and their lips curled.

So rather crestfallen, Jimmie and I resumed our seats.

A titter ran through the back end of the car from our fellow-passengers who had seen the incident. And among those in front who turned around to see what was cooking were a big sailor and a large soldier, both of them salty.

At, which moment, one of the two ladies said audibly above the noise of the car:

“I’ve never been so insulted. Two old drips like them…”

The sailor looked back along the car and saw Jimmie and me both blushing. And all our neighbors eyeing us with amusement.

The sailor heaved ho.

“Which done it?” he inquired jovially of the two ladies.

Both ladies flashed a hot and indignant glance down at us.

The sailor winked at the soldier. The two rose up very tall.

The sailor reached over and pushed the stop button on the window frame.

“So,” he said, genially, taking hold of the whole front of my coat, my necktie, collar, Adam’s apple and lapels. “So, this is what goes on while us boys are away to the wars, huh?”

He lifted me up.

There were scattered exclamations from the other passengers around. “What do you mean… how dare…” I said, as I felt myself airborne.

The sailor set me down in front of him and began propelling me towards the door.

“Look here,” I shouted, “what is the meaning…”

But the sailor just put his knee under me and lifted me loose from the hold I had on the upright bars.

I glanced back in dismay, to see if none of the passengers would speak up in my behalf. And I saw the soldier hoisting Jimmie by the necktie.

Ready For the Heave

“A fine state of affairs,” boomed the sailor genially, addressing the car at large, “when two old grandpappies like this can ride around in public insulting ladies.”

“And good-looking bims, too,” said the soldier, cheerily, holding Jimmie at arm’s length.

The car came to a stop. But the sailor was so strange to landlubber’s ways that he did not know you have to stand down on the step to open the door.

He just held me ready, and waited for the door to open.

The soldier right behind had Jim ready, too.

“Listen, sailor,” I said huskily through my neckband up around my ears. “Would you be sport enough to ask those ladies how we insulted them?”

“Get ready, grandpappy,” replied the sailor, waiting for the doors to open.

“Hey,” came a stranger shoving from the rear of the car, “wait a second, boys. These gentlemen didn’t insult anybody….”

At which moment, the motorman, seeing nobody wanted off, started the car.

“Just a minute,” shouted the sailor.

But the car proceeded.

“What’s this?” asked the soldier of the agitated citizen who had come to our aid.

“Listen, all these gentlemen did was offer those ladies their seat,” insisted our champion.

“Go and ask them,” I strangled. “Go on and ask them how we insulted them…”

The sailor let go of me and went back towards the ladies who were the thrilled object of the whole car’s attention.

“You said these birds insulted you, lady,” said the sailor.

“They certainly did,” said they together emphatically.

“What did they say?” asked the sailor grimly.

“They didn’t say anything,” said they. “They offered us their seats. Two old drips like them! Offering us their seats. Us! What do they think we are, taking seats from two old drips old enough to be our grandfathers.”

They perked up their chins and waggled their eyelashes around at the other customers.

“They…. er…. ah….” said the sailor.

The soldier let go of Jimmie.

“Maybe some of you soldiers,” called the sailor generally, “would like to give up your seats to these two ladies?”

Nobody moved. A lot of people laughed.

“Dad,” said the sailor, taking my arm and patting my tie straight and dusting me off, “allow me to return you to your pew.”

He was redder in the face than I. The soldier practically picked Jimmie up in his arms and carried him back to our seat.

Everybody was happy except the two ladies who, after a moment, moved up to the middle door and at the next stop got off, after favoring the whole carload, especially all the soldiers, with haughty and withering glances.

“Dad,” said the big sailor, lingering, “I’m sorry about this. You see, us guys come home full of high ideals. We’re ready to jump right in and do the Lord Galahad act at the first opportunity. When I heard that dame say she was being insulted….”

“It’s okay, son,” I said, “those ladies were at the easy insulted age…”

So for the rest of the run to the office, the sailor and the soldier hung on to the rail of our seat and we talked about this war and the last one, and everybody around leaned and listened with interest.

Editor’s Notes:

Post-War Veteran Re-Establishment was organized in World War 2, as the Department of Veteran’s Affairs was created in 1944, among other activities to avoid the issues after World War 1. ↩︎
More information on the Great War Veterans’ Association can be found here. ↩︎

Spring Cleaning Isn’t What It Used to Be

by admin

On May 9, 2024

In Miscellaneous, News Article

By Gregory Clark, May 7, 1921.

Man is a lucky creature.

But isn’t he brutally ungrateful?

This spring, the newspapers and magazines are as full as ever of spring-cleaning jokes, poems and cartoons.

The same old line of bunk: father afraid to come home to his muddled household; hubby going golfing or staying down to business at night to escape the madness that has overcome his home.

Is it possible! – is it possible that men are still under the impression that spring cleaning is the old bogey it was in the nineteenth century? Is it possible that men are unaware of the greatest revolution in womenkind since Eve.

The beating of carpets is no longer to be heard in the land. The sight of husbands eating supper on the back steps is no more.

For all unheralded, greeted indeed ungrateful indifference, has come the modernization of spring cleaning, a reform amongst women which for economic importance far exceeds their capture of the vote or their right to sit on juries.

It has been a most sweeping reform. It has affected every male citizen of the community. Yet have the men recognized it, hailed it, acclaimed it? No. They still perpetrate the outmoded jokes and jests of a bygone age.

Twenty years ago, what was spring cleaning? Ah, let us grant that was a terror.

As soon as the last foul snow had fled from the yard corners, the womenfolk began to set the date for the big bee. Father, sons and all were formally warned to be on hand yet out of the way. Soap, new scrubbing brushes and yellow ochre were bought in large quantities. Carpet beaters, step-ladders and curtain-stretchers were brought forth out of the cellar. As the fated day drew nigh, the women could scarcely contain themselves.

Then like doom, the day broke.

Off came curtains, carpets, pictures from the whole house, attic to kitchen. Out came books, out came the contents of the drawers, out came furniture, out came the hidden treasures of clothes closets.

For they did it all at a swipe, a generation ago.

There was a mad orgy of washing curtains, scrubbing floors, woodwork; beating carpets, dusting books, pictures, furniture. The curtains were dipped in yellow ochre to give them that correct creamy color, and then were stretched on frames with millions of pins, out in the backyard sun.

It lasted from three days to a week. Father had to come home early to beat carpets, ate meals in the kitchen, slept in a damp room on a strange bed, in a bare, curtainless, disorganized universe. He knew his books were being mixed up beyond redemption, that his desk was in confusion and all his valuable papers and memoranda lost forever.

He had to carry, heave, lift, tear up, tack down, and risk his neck hanging pictures which never would be straight again.

Those were days-

But what of the present!

To-day, a man never knows spring cleaning is going on if his wife didn’t tell him to notice how nice and clean everything was.

It is the greatest revolution in domestic customs since man moved out of caves into shanties.

For they now do it room by room!

A room a day. After, the men are off in the morning, the women tackle one room, wash and iron the curtains, vacuum the rug, dust and polish the floor and woodwork, clean windows, and so on.

Thus in a week or ten days the house is “done” and nobody would know the ancient fury had struck the place except the neighbors across the road who, peering out in true neighborly fashion, observed the curtains off for a few hours.

Where are the curtain-stretchers of yesterday? The carpet-beaters, the furniture piled in hallways, the tacks in the feet, the damp floors, the fury, the unrest of it all?

Are we not as cleanly as the former generations?

A dear old lady, who has seen many changes since stage coaches used to leave King and Yonge streets, explained the revolution as follows:

“Twenty years ago, had you suggested to a good housewife that she do one room at a time, she would have been scandalized.

“And have the dirt fly from one room to another!” she would have cried.

“To-day, you have machines that inhale the dust, so to speak. Lace curtains of creamy color are no longer the fashion. Little curtains of to-day are easily and quickly washed and ironed.

“But the secret of this great reform is this.

“Twenty years ago, women had very few pleasures. The annual spring-cleaning jamboree was one of their few real athletic pastimes. They had one grand fling, and then contented themselves with the occasional euchre party for the rest of the year.

“To-day what have we? The movie, the motor car. Home is no longer the chief thing in life. It is merely a shelter in bad weather and a place to sleep at nights.

“Movies, motor-cars, tea-rooms, the Daughters of this and the Women’s Association of that are inventions of the last 20 years

“So spring-cleaning, as a pastime, has declined. And as a nuisance, it has been modified into the tame little thing it is to-day.”

The old lady picked up her crochet work again.

“Women do not change,” she said. “Only times do.”

Juniper Junction – 05/05/47

by admin

On May 7, 2024

In Comic, Juniper Junction

There is Millions in It!

by admin

On May 4, 2024

In Greg-Jim Story

***I saw Jim’s head shining at me, silvery, gleaming…***

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, May 3, 1947.

“What’s all this?” demanded Jimmie Frise indignantly.

“My fishing tackle,” I informed him.

“For Pete’s sake!” cried Jim. “Two packsacks, three haversacks¹, a valise and what’s this?”

“That’s my rod case,” I said wearily, “and well you know it. You’ve seen it every year! Jim, do we have to go through this every opening day?”

“Look at my tackle,” said Jim proudly. “All in that one small haversack. Everything.”

“Skip it,” I assured him, as we loaded my gear into the car. “Some men are proud of how much tackle they’ve got. And some are proud of how little tackle they’ve got. So let’s skip it.”

“Holy smoke,” gasped Jim, trying various ways of getting my rod case into the car. “How many rods are you bringing in this case.”

“Four,” I informed him coolly. “I’ve brought my heavy Thomas rod in case it’s windy. I’ve brought that little three-and-a-half ouncer, in case we get calm weather and small trout. And then a couple of spare rods, just in case of breakage or anything.”

“Mm, mm, mm!” remarked Jim. “Four rods. And all I own is one that I’ve had for 10 years.”

“It’s quite all right with me,” I said loftily. “If a guy wants to spoil his own sport. If a guy wants to fish for little trout with a great big pole heavy enough for salmon…”

“My rod,” advised Jim, “is under five ounces and is delicate enough to handle the smallest trout it is legal to keep.”

“Fine,” I agreed, “if a guy wants to limit his sport to little tiddlers. But suppose we get strong winds or run into a flock of two-pound trout – a fine time you’ll have trying to drive a line into the wind with that stick of spaghetti…”

“With that rod,” snorted Jim, getting a little hot, “I can cast into a wind as slick as you can.”

“Ah,” I submitted, as we climbed into the car, “you’ve got an all-purpose rod, eh? Well, I never saw one. I like to have a set of rods intended for the various conditions we have to meet.”

“You go at fishing,” said Jim bitterly, “the way a mechanic goes to a job, with a whole litter of tools. You go at trout fishing the way a dentist goes at a patient, with trays loaded with all kinds of drills and picks, and pliers and toad stabbers…”

“Would you play golf,” I cut in, “with one club? Say, a number three iron? Jim, I’m tired of this holier-than-thou attitude of you guys who have a minimum of fishing tackle. Half the fun in any sport is the gear. Guns, golf, fishing – they’re all the same. The gear, the tackle, is half the fun. If fishing consisted of nothing more than catching a bagful of fish, then why are you a fly fisherman? Why didn’t you stick to a gob of worms on a two-for-a-cent hook, with a nail for a sinker?”

“People,” explained Jimmie, “are nuts.”

“Just because they buy fishing tackle?” I protested.

“Look,” set forth Jim. “I am told that the fishing tackle industry alone in Canada and the United States is capitalized at 300 million dollars.”

“It couldn’t be,” I declared. “Maybe you mean the sporting goods business – guns, baseball, golf, tennis.

“No, sir,” interrupted Jimmie. “Just the fishing tackle. Maybe my figures are wrong. I’m not too good at remembering figures and telephone numbers and that sort of thing. But you look at all the factories, the warehouses, the wholesalers, the retailers – it wouldn’t take long, when you consider all the cities and towns of North America, to run the capitalization of an industry into three hundred millions.”

“It seems an awful lot to me,” I muttered, thinking of my own collection a little guiltily.

“How many fishing tackle stores are there in North America,” pursued Jim, “from Boston to San Francisco; from Vancouver to Miami? How much is invested in the property itself, the store and the fixtures? How many thousand dollars worth of stock does each tackle store carry? You see? It soon mounts up.”

“Well, if that’s silly,” I countered, “how about the jewellery business? How many billions is the jewellery business capitalized at, counting the factories, the importing houses, the wholesalers and retailers? All of them full of diamonds and gold? Man, if you’re going to try to prove people are nuts, just start thinking about the billions that are invested in gewgawa².”

“But fishing tackle perishes,” pointed out Jim. “I know people who spend $75 for a fly rod, $40 for reel, $12 for a LINE. The rod soon wears out. The reel gets bust. The line goes tacky in two seasons.”

“That’s true of everything we buy,” I protested.

“Not diamonds, not gold,” triumphed Jim. “If you spend money on diamonds and jewels, you can get it back any time. It’s a real investment.”

“Now, that,” I scoffed, “is one of the things I’d really like to debunk. It’s a pretty theory. But how does it work out? A man spends, in his life time, say, $2,000 on diamonds and jewellery for his wife. Rings, brooch pins, watches. He dies. Then she dies, an old lady. When they sell all the old-fashioned junk her loving husband lavished on her, would they get $2,000 for it? No, sir. The diamonds are cut in an outmoded fashion. The jewellery is out of date, but not out of date enough to be an antique. I bet they wouldn’t get $300 for it. Anyways they never do sell it. They divide the junk up among the children and grand-children, and it’s stuck in a drawer and scattered and forgotten. Over the years, it just dwindles and perishes away, all that $2,000 worth of diamonds and jewellery. Just dwindles and perishes away like everything else men waste their money on.”

“I suppose,” mused Jimmie, as he steered onto the open highway and hurrah for the opening trout season. “I suppose that’s true. Everything a man buys dwindles and perishes. He builds a great house, and day by day and year by year, it depreciates and diminishes in value until, in time, it’s just so much junk, to be torn down to make way for a factory or a block of flats.”

“All money is wasted,” I remarked, “if you look at it philosophically. The only thing money can buy is for USE of something. Therefore, as regards fishing tackle, all I say is – get plenty of it.”

“And use it,” added Jim.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Well, then,” chuckled Jimmie, “how many trout flies do you own?”

“Well… uh…” I explained.

“You’ve got,” accused Jim, “hundreds of trout flies. Maybe thousands. You’ve got aluminum cases full of them all in neat rows clipped inside. You’ve got plastic boxes filled with them loose. You’ve got tiny little size 18 flies that are no bigger than a grain of rice, with a hook so small you can hardly see it. And great big flies the size of a mouse. Now, my friend, how are you going to USE all those trout flies?”

“Jim, you know as well as I do,” I protested, “that different weather conditions, different qualities of sunlight and shadow, different seasons, different types of water, whether small brook or big river…”

“Stuff and nonsense,” laughed Jimmie. “You know that the very best fly fishermen use only four or five patterns of trout fly, regardless of season, weather, and kind of water.”

“Aw, I admit,” I admitted, “that an expert fly fisherman restricted to half a dozen patterns of fly, can catch more fish than a dub fisherman with a hundred different patterns of fly…”

“Are you a dub³?” inquired Jim.

“No,” I asserted.

“Then,” crowed Jim, “what are you doing with all those bags full of trout flies back there? How many flies have you brought with you today, now? Be honest.”

“A few boxes,” I said.

“Five boxes?”

“About.”

“Ten boxes?”

“Possibly,” I muttered.

I LOVE trout flies. I have collected them for 30 years the way a stamp collector collects stamps. Or a butterfly collector collects insects. It’s a hobby. And a beautiful one. Nothing can be more artistic and delightful to the eye than fly boxes filled with row upon row of delicate, tastefully arranged trout flies of all sizes. In fact, I HATE to use them. I carry one old battered fly box with about five patterns of cheap commercial flies – Montreal, Par Belle, Grizzly King, Silver Doctor and brown hackle⁴ – and these I have used for years and years. But I wouldn’t DREAM of going fly fishing without almost my entire collection of beautiful, precious trout flies. They are for looking at. They are for show. They add a spiritual quality to fishing. They dignify it. Dignify an otherwise absurd pastime.

“Jim,” I said, “the day will come when you will be very glad of my trout flies. One day, we will be stumped. We’ll find the trout won’t rise to a single pattern we are accustomed to use.”

“Then I’ll go for a chub tail,” assured Jim, “or a worm.”

“No,” I smiled, “we’ll find what they WILL rise to among my beautiful collection.”

And that day came a lot sooner than I expected. It was, in fact, the minute we arrived at Duck Chutes. We drove off the highway, and the 12 miles into the village, and a mile down the bush road to Duck Chutes and were happy to find nobody ahead of us at this beautiful stretch of big, rapid water.

Jim got in first and cast with a McGinty squirrel tail, that is, a black and yellow-bodied fly with a wing of fur off a squirrel’s tail.

“WOW!” he bellowed above the roar of the rapids, and I stumbled down the bank.

“A two pounder,” he yelled excitedly. “And I missed him!”

He cast again. I watched intently. Among the rolling rapids, I detected that bulge of a big, shining body as it reached at Jim’s fly. Jim struck. The fly came through the air. No fish.

I waded a few yards down stream and began casting with two flies on my leader – a good-sized Zulu on the end and a claret hackle for a dropper. The team of flies hadn’t swung two yards down the rapids before I, too, saw the steely shape of a big trout arch and flick spray with its tail. I struck. The flies came flying back. No fish. But I too yelled WOW.

Jim shifted a few paces upstream. And I, a few down. About every second cast, we had the rise of a big, lithe trout. But not one of them connected.

So we waded ashore and changed flies. I changed to something lighter-colored and smaller – a Par Belle at the end and a Grizzly King for a dropper. Jim changed to larger and darker – a big streamer with a badger hackle and a crimson body,

Immediately we had results. Up slashed the big trout of Duck Chutes, arched and rolled at our flies, flicked spray with their tails. But did not connect.

“Okay,” I said to myself, wading ashore, “there is only the one answer. A polar bear streamer.”

This is a big fly, with glossy white polar bear hair for a wing, and a body of vari-colored wool.

I used it alone. I cast it across and let it swing down, tugging my rod tip lightly.

A trout struck it with that curious elastic thud with which a tennis ball strikes the racket.

I struck. The fly came loose. My line wobbled feebly back through the air, minus the fly.

I staggered ashore and sat down abjectly on a rock. Jimmie had seen the strike and hurried down to me.

“What did he take?” he shouted excitedly.

“A polar bear streamer,” I announced, already fumbling with trembling fingers through my fly box dedicated to streamers. There were only two polar bears left!

“Ah,” said Jim, bending.

So I gave him one and I tied on the other.

I waded out and cast. Before the fly had drifted one yard, the same huge pluck of the curving trout, the same inexorable drag of a heavy fish, the strike of my rod, and the same awful sensation of the leader parting and the line coming ragged and flyless through the air.

I went ashore and watched Jim.

Jim struck. His rod arched. He staggered backward towards shore. The line parted. The rod straightened. And there was Jimmie fallen limp and heart-broken on the boulders, moaning.

I went and stood over him.

“It was a three-pounder,” he hissed.

“So was mine,” I agreed.

“Any more polar bears?” he asked, looking up at me haggardly.

“Not one,” I muttered.

“Anything else like it?” he begged. “Among all those hundreds and hundreds of flies?”

“Nothing,” I said. “We could look through them. But…”

And then I saw Jim’s head shining at me, silvery, gleaming, glittering…

Well, gentlemen, it wasn’t a matter of minutes before we both had a new fly, the nearest thing to a polar bear you ever saw. We christened it, rather artistically, I thought, the Cheveux de Frise. With my fly-tying wallet, we did up a couple of flies with wisps of Jim’s hair.

They were sensations. The first trout, logically enough, fell to Jim, a two pounder. Mine was a three- pounder. Then Jim got a three-pounder and I lost my fly in a bigger one still. Naturally, Jim had to come ashore while I trimmed him for a new one.

Well, between catching trout and wading ashore to provide either Jim or me with a new fly, a very happy two hours of Duck Chutes fishing was enjoyed until we reached our legal poundage of fish and Jimmie looked like a leper.

But it just shows you, you can’t have enough fishing tackle.

***Before we reached our legal poundage of fish Jimmie looked like a leper.***

Editor’s Notes:

The deference between packsacks and haversacks are usually just the amount they hold. ↩︎
Also “gewgaws”, known as worthless trinkets. ↩︎
In this case, “dub” means “a fool or incompetent person”. The same as a “duffer” in golf. ↩︎
All different kinds of flies. Greg was so into flies and fly fishing, that he even has a fly that he developed named after him, Clark’s Deer Hair Nymph. ↩︎

Would You Like to be a Juror? Few Men, No Women Have a Chance

by admin

On May 2, 2024

In Illustration, Miscellaneous

This illustration went with an article by Fred Griffin on how juries are selected in Ontario. It notes that Ontario still does not allow women on juries while jurisdictions like Alberta and some U.S. states have allowed it since 1922 and 1920 respectfully, despite recent changes giving women the vote. The article also lists all of the conditions to become a juror such as being over 21, being a British subject, not infirm, and owning $600 of property in cities or $400 in towns or villages.

The 1929 Tax Rate is Announced

by admin

On April 30, 2024

In Birdseye Center, Comic

The mill rate refers to the property tax rate. 1 mill is the same as a 10th of a percent. So the joke is the town is up in arms over a very small (0.00625%) tax increase.

‘Wanna Lift?’

by admin

On April 27, 2024

In Greg-Jim Story

***A fine looking car, with a fine looking gentleman leaning out the window, inched closer.***

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by James Frise, April 28, 1945.

“How long have we got?” demanded Jimmie Frise feverishly.

He was putting the finishing touches on this week’s Birdseye Center cartoon. We were in his den, at home, where he works when he is badly behind schedule.

“We have,” I said, sternly consulting my watch, “one hour and 22 minutes.”

“I’ll make it,” he said, scratching furiously at the paper.

“Well, you know the consequences,” I informed him grimly. “You heard what the editors said.”

“Editors,” said Jim, “have grown very industrial lately. You would think it was shirts they were manufacturing, instead of newspapers.”

“Publishing,” I enunciated, “is an industry. And as such, it must keep up to date.”

“In the old days,” mused Jim, as he scratched, “men plowed with a hand plow and a team of horses. Now they use a gang plow¹ behind a giant tractor. In the old days, men set type by hand and got newspapers out in such a leisurely manner that they would run off a couple of dozen, walk down to the hotel with them, let the boys look them over. And if there was nothing to complain of, why, the editor would have a couple more beers, walk back up to the plant and run off the rest of the edition.”

“Well,” I retorted, “you speak of tractors and plowing. You can’t deny that we are getting far better produce from the land than we did in former days. Why, there is hardly an agricultural item you can name that hasn’t been improved almost out of recognition.”

“Yep,” said Jim. “And more starving people in the world today than in all history.”

“There’s no connection,” I protested.

“There must be a connection,” said Jimmie. “There is always a connection. And it is finding the connection that is the biggest job in the world today. I think we should go back to the old way of producing newspapers. And only get one out when there is something new to report.”

“Huh,” I scoffed, “as if there isn’t plenty to report these days! Why, there is a regular avalanche of news.”

“What about?” inquired Jim mildly.

I didn’t even answer. I just looked at him, hunched over the drawing board.

“You mean the war?” inquired Jim, absently. “That isn’t new. That’s so old, everybody is tired of it. The war news ought to be cut down to a little paragraph. In fact, you might stick a little one-sentence paragraph up in the other corner from the weather probabilities. Something like: ‘Advance today 17 miles. Nine towns captured.'”

“And what would you fill up the rest of the paper with?” I inquired.

“News,” said Jim. “New stuff. Interviews with the greatest minds on earth about how we are going to work out real friendship between, say, America and Russia. Big stories on how we Canadians can get really interested in the Chinese people, in place of our present attitude, which is sort of like our interest in birds or butterflies.”

“Puh,” I said, “Who’d read that?”

“There you have it,” agreed Jimmie. “Newspapers always give the people what they want. In the old days, the newspapers gave the people serious arguments on public questions. The press was a sort of debating society. It was what the public wanted. When a man was plowing, behind a team of horses, plodding slowly over the fields, he wanted something to mull over in his mind. He didn’t want exciting, agitating news and sensations. He wanted something to ponder. Today, a man driving a gang plow tractor doesn’t want anything to ponder. He can’t ponder. How the heck could a man ponder, sitting up on the seat of a big roaring tractor yanking gang plows?”

“Get on with your drawing,” I warned, looking at my watch.

“Okay,” said Jim. “You talk. You tell me about all this Dumbarton Oaks² business and Bretton Woods³.”

All About Depreciation

“Ah,” I said. “You have me there. That’s like asking me to explain the Einstein Theory. Only a few men in the world can understand these big international things.”

“Aha,” said Jim. “Maybe our plow-pushing grandfathers could, though.”

“Naturally,” I admitted. “Back in the pondering days.”

“Well, give me a sort of nutshell description of Bretton Woods,” suggested Jim, industriously scratching. “Put it in a few words. It’s about the gold standard, isn’t it?”

“To tell you the truth, Jim,” I confessed, “I don’t actually know. World politics isn’t as simple as religion. You can put the Christian religion into a nutshell by quoting the Golden Rule. But there are over 400 Christian sects. You can’t put world politics into even a Golden Rule⁴. So you can imagine how many sects there must be in world politics.”

“Well, suppose Bretton Woods is about the gold standard,” pursued Jimmie, “what is the gold standard?”

“Just concentrate on your drawing,” I suggested firmly.

“Gold standard,” persisted Jim.

“Well,” I began carefully, “you know about depreciation, don’t you?”

“Yes,” said Jim, “depreciation is the fact that all property depreciates. You build a house, and it begins to depreciate the day you move in. Buy a new car, and it depreciates $500 as you sign the paper.”

“Exactly,” I explained. “One of the most distressing things about property of all kinds Is that it depreciates. This has worried mankind for countless ages. From the beginning of time. Our best brains have worn themselves out, across the centuries, trying to figure some way they could produce property that would not depreciate. A farmer toils all year to grow a crop. All the time he is working on it, his implements are depreciating. His horses are depreciating. His land is depreciating. He’s depreciating himself. His house, his barn, his pump, everything is depreciating in the process of producing a crop.”

“I can see that,” said Jim.

“Now, in olden days,” said I, “the farmer produced wheat in order to use some of it himself, but also to trade with the next farmer for the pork or hay that the other farmer produced. But everything he got, in exchange for what he produced, was perishable. The world was full of depreciation.”

“Everything perishes,” agreed Jim.

“But,” I clinched, “among men were a certain percentage, a small percentage, who weren’t content with that fact. They didn’t like the idea of everything depreciating and perishing. So they invented gold.”

“Aha,” said Jim.

“They explained to all the common people, the people who know in their hearts that everything perishes, and are content with that knowledge, I pursued, “that gold was a medium of exchange, only. To save time. To make it easy for people to deal in goods with one another, even at some distance.”

“It does do that,” admitted Jim.

“But its real and wicked characteristic,” I summed up, “was that it did not perish. It I did not depreciate. For crafty and greedy men who were smart at producing things, who by reason of their brains and industry, were able to produce far more than they needed, it was a way of preserving property right in the face of the one eternal natural law – that all things depreciate and perish.”

“So that’s gold?” cried Jim.

“The funny part of it is,” I explained, “the men who know and talk most about depreciation – industrialists and factory owners – are the busiest at trying to collect the largest amount of the one thing on earth that doesn’t depreciate – gold.”

“It’s the old dream of eternity,” said Jim. “Everybody trying to convert the perishable into the eternal.”

“It’s worse than that,” I checked. “While the mass of mankind is allowed only the perishable; while depreciation of everything they own, including their lives, is the very driving force of their lives, a small element of mankind – the smart, the clever and the hard-working – have kidded all mankind into agreeing that one thing is eternal – gold. Then let the poor man get it – if he can!”

“What devils,” cried Jimmie, “the clever people of the world are!”

“Not at all,” I assured him. “Clever people don’t understand about Bretton Woods any more than we do. They don’t even understand about gold. Most of them never see gold from one year’s end to the other, except in the ornaments they buy their wives. Gold got too clumsy to hoard. So they invented paper dollars. Paper dollars got too clumsy, so they invented bank accounts and stock markets. Now a man collects gold on his cuff. All he needs in his pocket is a dollar and a half in change.”

“The clever be damned,” said Jimmie, “they don’t even understand their cleverness.” And he gave a few final flourishes with his pen, unpinned the drawing and waved it in the air to dry it. “How long have we got now?” he demanded.

“Forty-three minutes,” I announced, startled. “Jim, we’ll have to hustle.”

“If we make good connections,” said Jim, racing into his coat, “we’ll have plenty of time. Six minutes to walk to the bus, 30 minutes on bus and street car…”

I led to the door, and very briskly we set off up the street and along the three blocks to the bus stop.

“Everything under control,” cried Jimmie. “There’s the bus just coming.”

And we hastened our steps and arrived at the bus stop exactly as the bus wheezed its brakes and drew up at the corner.

“Now we’ll make it right on the dot,” I said, as we started to swing aboard. “Thirty minutes exactly.”

A car horn tooted very brief and friendly.

A voice sang out –

“Can’t I give you a lift?”

And a fine looking car, with a fine looking gentleman leaning out the window, inched closer.

Jim pushed back and we waved to the bus driver.

“Thanks very much,” cried Jimmie, opening the car door.

“I saw you gentlemen hustling to catch the bus,” said the stranger genially, “and I figured you might be in a hurry.”

“We are, as a matter of fact,” I admitted, slamming the car door. “My friend here has an ‘or else’ situation on his hands. His boss told him that if he didn’t get his work down by a certain hour, the boss would take steps that would astonish us.”

As we sailed smoothly past the bus and speeded down towards the main highway to downtown, the stranger took us in with friendly but slightly amused glances.

“You must have a tough boss,” he said. “What’s your work?”

“He’s an artist,” I explained. “I’m a writer.”

“Well, well,” said the stranger, with the amused air of a gent who has accidentally picked up a couple of circus freaks.

“Yep,” said Jimmie, clutching his portfolio.

We whammed to the main corner and turned on to the main drag. Our driver was a business man who drove with that large, easy confidence.

“We’ll have a good 10 minutes to spare,” I said to Jim, showing him my watch. “We can pose around the editor’s door ostentatiously for 10 minutes and just show him.”

“I’ve got one call to make,” said the stranger. “It won’t take a minute. Where do you go?”

“To the Star Building.” I said anxiously.

“Within a block of where I park,” said the, business man.

He then announced the line of business he was in, explained that he was the executive manager and gave us a few brief biographical outlines of just who he was. He said any time we wanted an interesting story about Canadian business, we ought to look him up.

But we still stuck to the main downtown route, and at a good pace, and every block. we travelled, I felt easier.

Just One Call

All of a sudden, at Spadina Ave., he swerved the car south on to the old street.

“I’ve a brief call to make down here,” he said, “have to see a man about an order that has gone astray. Won’t be two minutes.”

Off into a dingy side street he turned, one of those old streets with churches converted into garages and old rough-cast houses used as storage places for unsightly merchandise of one kind and another.

Along this street, amid battered old trucks, he wound and wove his way, at a slow pace, until we turned into even a narrower and more dilapidated street, a blind street, cluttered with decrepit traffic of truck and horse-drawn wagon.

He drew up before a ramshackle factory of weathered planks.

“I’ll just be a couple of minutes,” he said cheerfully.

And he swung out and ran athletically up the steps and into the joint.

“I don’t like this, Jim,” I said. “We’re a good five minutes’ walk back to Spadina. And we’d have to transfer off Spadina and along King…”

“Why did we accept the lift?” groaned Jim bitterly. “We caught that bus just in the nick of time. It would have given us perfect connections, with time to spare…”

“We’ve got 16 minutes yet,” I said. “In this car we could make the office in about eight minutes.”

We sat forward and stared at the door of the drab factory.

“Big business executive,” I sneered.

“Well, he tried to do us a favor,” protested Jim.

“Big business,” I scoffed. looking at the decrepit view.

“Well, it’s in places like this,” assured Jim, “that gold is found. If it’s gold you are looking for, you never want to go to one of those big handsome buildings. The bigger and handsomer the edifice, the less chance you have of coming out of it with anything.”

I studied my watch.

“He’s been three minutes already,” I gritted.

“Whose idea was it,” demanded Jim, “to get off the bus and accept this lift?”

“Both of us,” I stated. “It’s human nature to accept a lift.”

“Without even thinking,” said Jim.

“The guy was good-natured about it,” I submitted. “He’s a good-hearted guy, no doubt. We’re good-hearted guys. And we were in a hurry…”

“The trouble is,” propounded Jimmie, “nobody stops to think any more. There is no time for pondering.”

The factory door opened, and our friend stuck his head out.

“I’m afraid I’ll be another 10 or 15 minutes…” he began.

But Jim and I were already out the doors and headed up the narrow cluttered street, back along the side street and out to Spadina.

We were 17 minutes late at the office.

But the editor was locked up in a conference with the vice-president for 40 minutes. So Jim had time to put a few more finishing touches on Birdseye Center while we waited.

Editor’s Notes:

A gang plow is a plow designed to turn two or more furrows at one time ↩︎
The Dumbarton Oaks Conference was an international conference at which proposals for the establishment of the United Nations, were formulated and negotiated. The conference was led by the Four Policemen – the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China. It was held at the Dumbarton Oaks estate in Washington, D.C., from August 21, 1944, to October 7, 1944. ↩︎
The 1944 Bretton Woods Agreement was the first example of a fully negotiated monetary order intended to govern monetary relations among independent states. The Bretton Woods system required countries to guarantee convertibility of their currencies into U.S. dollars, with the dollar convertible to gold for foreign governments and central banks at US$35 per ounce of gold. ↩︎
The Golden Rule is the principle of treating others as one would want to be treated by them. ↩︎

All Bets Are Off!

by admin

On April 25, 2024

In Illustration, Miscellaneous

These illustrations went with a story by Cyrus Leger about horse racing.

These are Busy Days for the Chief

by admin

On April 23, 2024

In Birdseye Center, Comic

Buy Low, Sell High!

by admin

On April 20, 2024

In Greg-Jim Story

***He looked Old Maud over, with one lightning glance, the way David Harum***¹ ***used to look over a horse.***

Jim, with the help of Greg and a few friends, works out a plan to beat the used car dealers at their own game. But…

By Gregory Clark, Illustrated by Jim Frise, April 24, 1948.

“I’ve decided,” announced Jimmie Frise, “to sell my car.”

“Jim, you’re crazy!” I exclaimed.

“No: I’ve just decided I’m smart,” he declared. “I’m going to cut the price of my new car by $600².”

“But you told me last night,” I protested, “that the car dealer said he couldn’t get you a new car until August or September.”

“Precisely,” agreed Jim. “The fact that summer is almost here, plus the extreme shortage of new cars, is what accounts for the fact that I can get $600 more for my old car than it’s worth.”

“You mean,” I cried, “that to make $600 you are going to do without a car all summer?”

“With a little co-operation from you,” admitted Jim, “that’s what I’m going to do.”

“Co-operation?” I queried.

“Yes,” said Jim. “You see, you are away at your summer cottage for two weeks in July, during which time your car stands idle in a tumble-down old rented garage up at the Landing. I figure you wouldn’t mind letting me have the use of your car during those two weeks…”

“Jim,” I interrupted. “There’s May, June, July and August…”

“Correct,” said Jim, “I’ve telephoned three or four others among my friends, checking their holiday schedules. There’s Bumpy and Bill Sparra and Harry Wilcox. They’re all taking their holidays at different times through the summer. And it so happens they are going to summer hotels up the lakes, where they abandon their cars, at the end of the highway, having to pay rent for garages…”

“Jim, look here,” I cut in sternly. “Use your common sense. How are you going to run all over the country, borrowing people’s cars?”

“It will be fun,” assured Jim. “It will be sort of like a holiday in itself. For example, when you go up to your cottage, I’ll go with you and drive your car back here and use it for the two weeks, bringing it up to the Landing the Sunday you are coming down. See?”

“But…” I began.

“You’d far rather,” cried Jim, “leave the car in my care than leave it in one of those baking summer resort garages, where anybody can break in!”

“I suppose that’s true,” I grudged.

“At any rate,” he announced, “if I sell my car now, at top prices, I get the new car for hundreds of dollars less, don’t you see? I bet I wouldn’t get $300 for it next September when my new car is ready. Yet I saw the same year and model as my car up at one of those used car lots for $900.”

“Surely not!” I scoffed. “Nine hundred dollars?”

“It’s a fact,” cried Jim. “I’ll drive you up and show you.”

“Still, to be without a car all summer,” I brooded, “is a pretty serious matter, Jim. In a sense, it’s really for summer – for the five months from May until October – that we own cars, most of us.”

“Exactly what has created the present market for used cars,” pointed out Jim. “The way to make easy money in this world is to take advantage of the weaknesses and needs of your fellow man. You’ll never get ahead in this world if you just work for wages or salary all your life. My new car next fall is going to cost $1,700. By taking advantage of the present market, as well as the good nature of half a dozen of my friends, I will buy that car for only $1,100. That’s what you call business.”

“You run certain risks,” I reminded him. “Suppose you crack up one of your friends’ cars?”

“I run that risk driving my own old jalopy,” countered Jim. “In fact, I will be far more careful driving your car and Bill Sparra’s and Harry Wilcox’s than I would my own. Every way you look at it, it’s a wise and shrewd move on my part.”

“Jim,” reflected, “there is a moral aspect to this business. If you did without a car all summer, that would be the price you pay for that $600 you are going to make. In other words, to earn $600, you sacrifice your car for the summer.”

“Are you hinting,” inquired Jim, “that you don’t want to lend me your car, when it’s lying idle anyway?”

“No, no!” I hastened. “I just feel there’s something immoral about this used car racket, selling old jalopies at outrageous prices, just by taking advantage of the widespread desire to drive cars in summer. If you were going to do without a car for the summer suppresses that natural desire, why, the $600 you would make would look quite so… so…”

“What I say,” declared Jim, “is, make use of every advantage in this world. Among the advantages we possess are a number of fine friends who would be glad to lend me their cars for a couple of weeks, partly for the sake of friendship, partly to see me make $600; and partly to save them the rent on those tumble-down summer resort garages where goodness knows what might happen to your car…”

“Okay, okay,” I surrendered. “And it will be $600 that won’t show in your income tax, Jim. I suppose the smartest guys in this world are the traders who make deals like this all the time. We salary and wage earners are the suckers.”

“I’ve been a sucker long enough,” said Jim, rising and pulling down his vest and lighting a cigarette with a very big-executive flourish. “It will give me a new self-respect, next fall, to be driving around in a car that cost me 600 bucks less than those of all the suckers I pass in traffic. Do you want to come up with me while I shop around and make the sale? Do you know any of these used car lot pirates?”

“The fact is,” I replied, “not only do I not know any of them, I’ve never seen any of them. I’ve looked at hundreds of used car lots in passing, but now that I come to think of it, I’ve never in my life seen anybody around them. Just a great big corner lot packed with motor cars sitting there. And no human inhabitant in sight.”

“Oh, they’ll be there, all right,” assured Jim. “They hide at the back, somewhere.”

So we went out to Jim’s garage and took a last look at Old Maud, Jim’s faithful schooner for more than 10 years. Many’s the thousands of miles it has carried us on fishing trips and hunting trips. Many’s the $10, $20 and $50 it has cost to have its engine overhauled, its brakes relined, its clutch repaired. Many’s the thousands of dollars’ worth of gas its rusty old engine has inhaled in our service.

“I’ll just get a pail of water and a rag,” said Jim, “and give her a wipe.”

While Jim was sponging off the exterior of Old Maud, he had me, with a whisk-broom, tidying up the interior, from the trunk compartment, I removed sundry personal odds and ends, such as a set of rusty chains, an old shovel and an accumulation of ancient car tools that had shaken themselves into out-of-the-way corners of the compartment.

“No wonder she’s rattled,” remarked Jim, as I passed him carrying an armful of salvage toward the garage. Jim sponged off the body, fenders and windows; and I took the hose and tidied up the wheels and spokes. Little by little, Old Maud took on a genteel if shabby expression. We hadn’t seen her so clean in years. But just the same, her scars showed more clearly.

“It’s better, perhaps,” pondered Jim, as we stood back and surveyed the old schooner, “not to tidy up an old car too much. It only accentuates its age, like cosmetics on an old woman.”.

“Anybody,” I stated, “who would pay $900 for an old crock like that is nuts.”

“Not nuts,” smiled Jim, patting the wobbly hood, “just summer madness.”

“Do you feel any twinges of sorrow on bidding goodbye to an old friend and faithful car like this?” I asked.

“Aw, no,” said Jim, lightly. “Some cars, like some people, can live too long. Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

“You won’t sell it right tonight!” I protested.

“If I get a decent offer, I’ll sell right now,” said Jim.

“But what about the family? Are they reconciled to being without a car?”

“I’ve explained the whole deal to them,” said Jimmie. “And they all are in complete agreement. I’ve promised to allow them $5 a week for taxis, in special cases of emergency. Then I figured you wouldn’t mind lending me your car once in a while, for special occasions…”

“Mmmmm,” I reflected.

“I’ve suggested the same to Bumpy and Bill Sparra and Harry Wilcox,” went on Jim. “The family figure we’ll be a lot better off, for a while, than we’ve been with Old Maud here.”

Jim waved me into the car and stepped on the starter. Old Maud’s starter whined and whimpered, and finally the engine exploded into life, and the usual fumes belched up through the worn matting on the floor boards.

“I’ll take you first,” shouted Jim, “to the place they have this same model at $900.

A few blocks away, we arrived at the large used car lot of McGrigor, Mortis & Co. A big banner over the entrance bore the company’s name and the legend: “Highest Prices Paid.”

Along the front of the lot, there was an array of the handsomest new cars you would see even at a motor show. Resplendent, shining, glittering, none of them showed the slightest sign of having been used at all. But as we drove in the lane, we saw that back of the glittering cars were close-packed ranks less glittering cars. And farther back still, were rows and rows of cars that didn’t glitter at all. These most backward ranks of cars all had prices painted on the windshield with whitewash. $375 or $500 or $625. Only the shabbiest cars had the indignity of prices painted on them.

Sure enough, as we drove down deep into the lot, a man emerged from a little shack and came toward us cautiously.

“Mr. McGrigor?” inquired Jimmie heartily, out the car window. “Or Mr. Mortis?”

“Neither,” said the gentleman. “They’re both in Florida. What can I do for you?”

“I was thinking of selling this car,” said Jim, as though in doubt.

“You might get somebody to buy it,” agreed the gent.

“What would you give me for it?” inquired Jim.

“How much do you want for it?” countered the used car man.

“Well, you’re the buyer,” smiled Jim. “What would you offer?”

“No, I’m not the buyer,” smiled the used car man, “I’m only interested in selling cars. How would $250 catch you?”

Jim was stunned.

“Two,” he croaked, “fifty!”

“That’s all it’s worth to me,” said the used car man.

“But…” sputtered Jim, “right over there is the same model as this offered at $900!”

“Aw, sure,” said the used car man, “but that car has a new engine in it and only two years ago it had a new transmission and rear end. We’ve put a lot of work on that, the same as we would with this if we bought it.”

“Two fifty!” fumed Jim. “Why, I’ll sell it privately, I’ll advertise it…”

“Sure, sure,” laughed the used car man, “and in about a month, the buyer will be back with it, saying you misrepresented it; and he’ll sue you unless you give him back $400.”

“Do they sue you?” demanded Jim bitterly.

“Aw, no,” explained the used car man. “We do a lot of work on the cars we take in. And in the contract of sale, we make mention of all the work done, see. How about $250?”

Jim did not answer. He backed Old Maud out the lane, and in silence we drove back home.

As he turned off the ignition in the side drive, Jimmie spoke for the first time.

“Imagine,” he said tenderly, “imagine selling a faithful, wonderful old car like this for $250!”

He patted the seat affectionately. He ran his hands lovingly over the steering wheel.

“Next fall, when the new car is ready,” he said. “It will break my heart to part with her.”

“At that price,” I added.

“You have no sentiment,” accused Jim.

Editor’s Notes:

David Harum references a movie (and book) about a businessman and a horse he purchased. The story is known more today for the racist stereotype played by the black actor Stepin Fetchit. ↩︎
$600 in 1948 would be $8,480 in 2024 ↩︎