The Roswell Daily Record

Punsters' Paradise
[Original.]

Whatever induced my parents to saddle me with the name under which I have staggered through life I am at a loss to know. The surname Prettyman is enough in itself for one person to bear, but when prefixed by Dawes Deering-the name of my mother's brother-it is next to unbearable. However, I can say what few can say-my name has been the rudder which has steered my life's bark.

What at first called my attention to the incubus under which I was destined to stagger were the puns I endured in childhood. I was told at least once a week that if I made as pretty a man as boy I would be an Adonis. When I came to an age to be an object of interest to young girls punning on my name burst into a flame. In one year, having made a note of the different puns thrown at me, I counted twenty of "There's a dear ring to it;" twenty-four, "It's a very endearing name;" eighteen, "I'll wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at," while the different puns on Prettyman numbered fifty-six.

It was this part of my name that decided my career. From my youth I realized that I could not afford to embrace an ordinary, especially an effeminate, career. For instance, it would never do for me to stand behind a counter and sell ribbons to ladies. I was trying to think of some occupation especially manly when the Spanish-American war broke out. Here was my opportunity. I enlisted and went with my regiment to Santiago.

After the first fight I was made a corporal, but was at once reduced to the ranks to enable the captain to pun on my name. "He'd make a pretty man for a corporal," he said sardonically. "Nominate some one else." But in the next fight all the non coms were killed off, and I was again put forward. This time my name saved me. The captain had been killed, and the first lieutenant (promoted) recommended me for lieutenant in order to get a pun off to the colonel.

"Whom would you recommend?" asked that officer.
"I think I know a pretty good man, colonel," replied the captain.
"Well, who is it?"
"Dawes Deering Prettyman," replied the captain, looking very knowing.

In a few minutes the colonel saw the point, burst into a laugh and said: "By Jove, but you're bright! I'll see that he is appointed."

One night I was sent for to report in person to the colonel. He told me that the general had asked him to recommend the best man in his regiment for an important daring service. He had decided on me, and I knew that it was to enable him to get the captain's pun off on the general. He sent me to brigade headquarters with a note. When the general read it, he burst into a laugh.

"Well, Mr. Prettyman," he said, "the colonel says that you may not be his best man, but you're a pretty man, and he thinks you'll make a pretty good man. Bright man, your colonel."

I made no reply--aloud, but ground my teeth and said inwardly, "I'll do something to stop this business or die."

The same night I went into the enemy's lines, found a path by which we might get to the base of a fortified hill we wanted and returned to the general with my report.

"General," I said, "as a reward for my service, which is without the line of duty-that is, voluntary--I claim the right to command the force of which I must be the guide to the rear of the hill."

He thought a moment, then his face lighted up. Seizing a pen, he wrote a note to the general commanding, stating my claim, my reasons, and recommending me cordially, ending with the words, "He's the prettiest man in the division for the work." After reading his note over three times, chuckling every time, he handed it to me and told me to take it to the general in chief.

The general in chief was too intent on the work to be done to remark upon the pun, and I congratulated myself that this time I would escape. I was doomed to disappointment.

At 2 o'clock in the morning I led a battalion around by the path I had discovered, attacked the hill in rear-an attack in their front being made at the sound of my guns-and carried the fort. I was commended in orders by the commander in chief, who ended his commendation as follows:

Lieutenant Prettyman is not only Prettyman, but a pretty brave man, and has done a pretty good work for his country.

By this time I had got ahead of my name, or, rather, that desire to be considered witty which overpowered my superiors, and was rapidly promoted from one grade to another. When we returned to the United States I commanded my regiment.

But all the sufferings from my peculiar name I endured in Cuba were destined to be atoned for in one sweeping revenge. The general who had recommended me as fitted to command the attack on the fort we captured upon reaching home, in order to get off his favorite pun, insisted on introducing me to his family. He did so, flourishing the pun with great gusto. His daughter took it into her head to fall in love with me, and in time I got even with her father by giving her the name of Mrs. Dawes Deering Prettyman. Taking the name into his family nearly broke the old general's heart. And now that my son is coming on his grandfather would rather hear a shrieking shell than some wit say to the boy, "If you make as pretty a man"

The punster never gets any further. The general's roars are more terrifying than his guns were at Santiago.