Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1884 — THE DUDE. [ARTICLE]

THE DUDE.

A Faithful Portrait of a BtHM-Madi Specimen. "Do they make you tired ?” “Well, I should hum!” The question and its metaphorical but vigorously expressive answer were inspired by the presence of a Detroit dude (a genuine specimen of the species) in a Griswold street barber shop. The person who proposed the question was a gentleman who subsequently explained that the sight of a dude or even adu deling (who merely his hair •n the middle), 'had almost as marked an effect on him as water has on a dog affected with hydrophobia. “I git quite a procesh of them things in my chair," continued the barber, with a curious nervous movement —a cross between a chuckle and a shudder —“but jest as soon’s warm weather comes I’m goin’ to rattle ’em out, now don’t you forget it.” “Why? Are they not profitable customers ?” “Not much! There’s that little feller that just went out. We call him Lizzie here in the shop—when he ain’t around —because he’s more like a gir£ goin’ to her first ball than a man.' I don’t ’spose he’s more’n 20 years old, but his git-up’s .a killer. He come in here the night oH>he swell skatin’ party at MoQuade’s rink, with a claw-hammer coat on under a toiler (new market you know), that pretty nearly dragged on the ground, a white handkerchief spread out under his vest, and the darndest toothpicky pair of toothpick shoes on I ever got onto—and I’ve seen some tough ones in my time. I was wait in’ on a customer, and so this feller he set down in that very chair you’re in now, hauled out a one-eyed eye-glass, stuck it into his right eye, screwed up the right-hand corner of his mouth and made out’s if he was a readin’. Mr. Merry weather, there, laughed so much he’s been sick ever since. “When, I get through with my regular customer I tried to fish up an excuse to git out of the shop, but the dude got onto me and I was stuck. I had to bang his hair, then part it down the middle a little ways and then plaster jt and bring the ear-locks forward. After that he wanted a hand-glass, and then I had to arch up his eye brows, which he wouldn’t let me do till he’d stuck that one-eyed glass in again.” “Well, you made at least a dollar on the job?” ~ “ “Got jest twenty-five cents. Why, every time that feller and his kind comes around they want the ends of their hair trimmed and don’t never want to pay more’n ten cents for it, either.” “What is your observation with respect to the intellectual strength of men who part tneir hair in the mfddle?” “Oh, that depends. We git Canucks and Englishmen here sometimes who do that and yet who seem to have horse sense ; but when it comes to our own country folks (Americans I mean, not Africans,) the fellers that part their hair in the middle don’t amount to a hill of beans—can’t talk about anything but clothes and hair oil with now’n then an exception ’bout gals. Never saw one of them curses that didn’t think every gal he knowed was dead gone on him, and I’ll bet money not one of ’em could tell to save his soul when the Mayflower come over or whetlier Abe Lincoln or Bismarck issued the ©mancipation proclamation.” Here Mr. Merryweather seized the opportunity to remark that “none o’ them dudes (last f?° to the roller skat in-’ rinks for fear all the ladies’d be after ’em to skate to fast music, and that’d pweat their bangs all out.” “S-s-s-h!” commanded the boss as another dudelet swung open the door and came simpering along to the enemy’s chair.” The boss winked wickedly, Mr. Merryweather stuffed one fist into his mouth, the historian of the episode paid for two week’s shines and the curtain dropped.— Detroit Press.