Show THE OLD MAN ily hy robert J ichabod my boy I 1 heard you speak of your father this morning as the old man you are eighteen years of age are you not just so that is the a age ae e when callow youth has its first attack of bighead you ini imagine agine at this moment that you know it all I 1 observed by the cut of your trousers the angle of your hat the tip of your head the flavor of your breath the style of your toothpick shoes and the of your walk that you are badly gone on yourself this is an error of youth which your uncle can overlook but it pains me sorely to hear you speak in t terms erms of disrespect of one you should never mention save by the sacred name of father he may not be up to your style in the modern art of making a fool of himself but ten to one lie he forgets more in a week than you will ever eve know he may not enjoy smoking ting gutter snipes chopped fine and enclosed in delicate tissue paper but he has borne a good many hard knocks for your sake and is entitled to all the reverence your shallow brains can muster by and by after you are through knowing it all and begin to learn something you will be ashamed to look in the glass and wonder where the fool killer kept himself when you were ripe for the sacrifice and then when the old man grows tired of the journey and stops to rest and you fold his arms across his bosom and take a last look at a face that has grown beautiful in death you will feel a sting of regret that you ever spoke of him in so gro sly disrespectful a manner and when other sprouts of imbecility use the language that so delighted you in thu the germinal period of manhood you will feel like chasing them with a thick stick and crushing their skulls to see if there is any brain tissue on the inside |