Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 September 1883 — THE VELVET COAT DISEASE. [ARTICLE]

THE VELVET COAT DISEASE.

A Malady that all 'Men Have, Sooner or Later. A couple of old men were standing in front of a Milwaukee hotel, smoking 5-cent cigars, one evening when a young fellow passed along with a velvet coat on. and before he got out of sight an old fellow about 60 years old passed the same place, and he had on a velvet coat. One of the two old men knocked the ashes off his cigar and said: “It catches them all, sooner or later.” “What do you mean?” asked the other, as he borrowed his friend’s cigar to light his own. “Why, the velvet coat period," said the first old rooster, as he took his cigar back and pulled on it to keep it going. “Every man, sometime in his ‘ life, either as boy or man, sees a time when he thinks the world will cease to revolve on its axis if he does not have a velvet coat, and he is bound to have ~ ~one if he has to steal the money to buy it. It is bad enough for a boy to have the period come on, but it is infinitely worse to escape it in youth and have it attack a man in middle life. Now, you wouldn’t think to look at me that I ever had the velvet coat fever* but I had it once in its most violent form. About twenty years ago, at the time of the oil-excitement, I made a little money in oil, and I got to thinking how I could show how I was no ordinary son and all at once it struck me that a velvet coat could do it for me, and I had a surveyor measure me and a velvet coat made. I was anxious to have it done so I could put it on and go around among the boys, but when it was done and had been brought home I all at once lost my grip and could hardly get up courage to put it on. I le Lit lay - for-a- week, until my people got to making fun of me about being afraid to wear it, and finally*! put it on and wore it down town after dark. Only a few people saw it, and I went home feeling satisfied that the worst was over. Af<er 'a while I wore it to my office on days that I was going to be busy, go I knew I wouldn’t have to go around town. After the boys in the office got so they could witness my coat without going behind a partition to laugh at me, 1 concluded to wear it on the street.. Well, there was an organgrinder with a monkey, out on thesjdewalk, when I went out, and the beastly Italian had on an old v<4vet coat, like mine, only soiled. The monkey was jumping around, picking up" pennies, and all at once he saw me. I shall never forget the expression on that monkey’s face. He seemed to take me for his master, and clearly realized that his master had procured a new coat without asking the consent of his little brother. There was a look of pain as though the monkey felt hurt that such duplicity had been practiced on him, and then the monkey would look at my coat with envy. I never felt so sorrv for a monkey in all my life. I cou’d stand it to hear strangers say, as I passed by, ‘What blank fool is that,’ but to see that poor mOnkev grieve over ~ the style 1 was putting on was too much. I got out of there and went home, with shouts of the monkey’s audience sounding in my ear's, and I took oft' that coat and gave it to the man that took care of my horse, and I never see a velvet coat, either on boy or man, but I think or what a confounded fool I made of myself in my Oscar Wilde days. If you have a boy, teach him to go through the velvet coat period young, and he will thank his stars. ” — Peck’s Suu.