The Prison Mirror

CHIPS
by E. W. D.
December 22, year's shortest day -but that's only what the calendar sez...
Drama in no acts -reflected on window glass. Man places taper on bars and turns to get a drink of water just as light goes by on silent feet. Turns just in time to see the last spark fall from charred paper and makes a futile dash--grrrrr... Irrevelevant information: Picture last Xmas was "Three Men on a Horse," and New Year's Day brought "Charge of the Light Brigade"...
One of the guests with a flair for physics has invented what will be known to posterity as the Illicn System. This system deals with the largest sums of figures known to man and reduces a quintiseptitrizrillion to the merest indivisible sum, just like that. Now its inventor only uses the system to figure what his bank balance might have been had an unkind fate been kind...
A white-haired rumor impresario thinks aloud that pardons look awfully nice even in January. Another rumor, we bet. See what you've done to your rep?...
Go ahead, Joe.
Between bites we were discussing the feelings of Americans abroad when confronted with something representative of the United States and home sweet home.
The statue of Abraham Lincoln in London, for example, or a U. S. battleship in foreign waters. "Hah!" said the other party to this discussion, still between bites, "how about the flag? Some of the greatest thrills I ever experienced came from a glimpse of the flag--I'll tell you about it. I was a runner in France during the war and I had to trot hither and thither for practically no reason at all. You have no idea just how mobile those French towns could be and often were -especially after a few shells had been dropped on them. The annoying habit of these shells to entirely alter the topography of the countryside played the dickens with our maps and almost ruined the morale of at least one first-class runner. Why, I spent most of my time being lost or just getting back from being lost. After receiving implicit, explicit and detailed instructions as to the location of a certain town, I would start out and probably wind up about ten kilometers from anywhere. Another few hours and I might stumble onto a building above which was floating the Stars and Stripes. What a thrill-what a relief! For this signified the Town Major's quarters, where I could find out where th' hell I was and what th' hell I was doing there, anyway!" Having said all this he went back to his biting and we took to wondering what manner of country it was where the towns roamed around like ghosts.
Sports tidbit: During 1938 the National League (baseball, you remember that!) will use a slower ball, technically known as the number four ball, while the American League will continue to use the home-run ball, or number three. As for us, ladies and gentlemen, after giving the knotty problem careful consideration, 1938 will find us still solidly behind the eight-ball.
The most valid argument against holding both the New York World's Fair and the San Francisco Exposition in the same year is that instead of missing just one, those who are sans freedom will miss both of them. While the majority of con-finees probably would not attend were they able, let us be deprived of the opportunity to attend and immediately we are moaning low.
We have always been intrigued by reports of men who have lived more or less dangerous lives only to one day fall off the curbstone and break their necks. These are the incidents that foster a fatalistic belief. We once knew of a fellow who conscientiously and painstakingly donated day by day ten years of his time to one of these United States. At the end of this period he arrayed himself in the raiment of the world once more, paused momentarily to receive his personal effects, and dropped dead of heart trouble before leaving the building. Perhaps what is to be is really to be, and the next time one of those slips comes along, just say "Well, that heart attack is postponed again-dammit!"
It doesn't mean a thing, and possibly you won't believe us, but to everyone we know or don't know we wish the merri-est possible Christmas and a happy, rapid New Year.