Show I NARROW I Is the Difference Between the Hero and the Fool Do you know how narrow the difference dif-ference is between a hero and a fool queried the man with the ingrowing toenail and the disordered liver as he turned on the group of storytellers Everybody knew the narrowness of it but everybody also wanted to hear his yarn Down in my town of St Louis he growlingly continued we had steamboat excursions on the river in summer I went on one of these excursions ex-cursions one afternoon last July 1 was feeling particularly peart that day and perhaps wishing for a chance to show off and after an hour or so something happened I got in with a little crowd and was giving the boys some of my army experiences and making the stories pretty strong when there was a sudden splash and the cry of man overboard That was my opportunity op-portunity I couldnt see who had fallen but off came my coat hat vest and shoes and I pushed through the crowd and took a header off the hurricane hurri-cane deck to save the unfortunate And you struck the water was asked I did And went down down down and finally turned and came up up up Yes it was that way And you grabbed the struggling victim by the collar and No sir Was it too late had he sunk No sir Did he grasp you Not a grasp Well how did you rescue him and thereby receive the plaudits of the multitude I didnt rescue anybody Some drunken fellows at the the rail threw an empty beer keg overboard and called out for a joke and when I came to the surface the keg vas Lobbing about under my right oar and the multitude was giving me the grand guffaw And you were no hero Not a bit I simply made an ass of myself The guy was bad though but as the river bank was only a hun dred feet away the boat left ne to swim ashore and I never recovered my clothing and the 80 in cash in rny i pockets j Ard have you tried the hero business j busi-ness since was softly asksd alcr a long jiuse Nat was the reply as he rose up and shook ais disorderjj liver anl mentally cussed his ing owing toenail toe-nail naw of course not Dont make me out a bigger fool than I am |