“What’s that smell? Is it smoke?—Is it?” You throw open the door and have an agowilt; the staircase is in flames. But this is the fierce and wild variety. Agowilts tamed for domestic use, are far more common. The minute after you throw the burnt match into the waste-paper basket, the agowilt comes.

It may be but a single extra step which isn’t there and the agowilt playfully paralyzes your heart. So a sudden jerk of the elevator, the startling stopping of the train, the automobile skidding, the roller-coaster looping the loop—bring agowilts.

Vicariously you suffer as well, when the trapeze performers swing in dizzying circles or do the “death dive.”

“Good heavens! I left my bag in the train!”—an agowilt quite as painful. (See Nulkin.)

Why does your friend, reckless Robert, pause on the edge of the cliff? Merely to delight you with an agowilt.

When I taught Fanny, the flirt, to swim, and she found herself in water over her head, why did she scream and throw her arms about my neck? Was it truly an agowilt? (See Varm.)

A circus poster is an alibosh; so is a seed catalogue, a woman’s age and an actress’s salary. (See Blurb.)

There are verbal aliboshes too numerous to mention: “I have had such a charming time!” and “No, I don’t think you’re a bit too fat, you are just nice and plump.” (See Gubble and Wumgush.)

The saleswoman makes her living on the alibosh: “Yes, I think that hat is very becoming.” She doesn’t believe it, you don’t believe it—it’s only a part of the game—like the lies of horse-trading, the inspired notices of theatrical failures or a prospectus of a gold mine.

As Mrs. Ezra P. McCormick stood in the middle of Myrtle Avenue at the corner of Grandview Street the trolley car came hurtling past, ten minutes behind time. Wildly she waved her parasol, but the car would not, did not stop! Mrs. McCormick got bimped. Her bimp was the more horrible, because the conductor turned and grinned at her, and three men on the rear platform laughed, for Mrs. McCormick was very fat. (See Jurp.)

Did you get that raise in your salary on New Year’s day, or did you get bimped? Were you forgotten on Christmas? Did you draw to a flush and fail to fill? You got bimped. Did you find you had no cash in your pocket when it came time to pay the waiter? Did that firm cancel its order? Bimps.

What did Mrs. Harris’s servant girl do on the very afternoon of the dinner party? She bimped Mrs. Harris! She packed her imitation-leather suitcase, grabbed her green umbrella and walked away.

The girl who stood “Waiting at the church” got the biggest bimp of all. (See Agowilt.)

Bimp not, that ye be not bimped! (See Machizzle.)

Comic valentines are very bleesh; the newspaper “comic strip” with the impossible adventure ending in catastrophic brutality; stars, exclamation points and “Wows!” Especially a bull-dog, biting the seat of a man’s trousers and revolving like a pinwheel—this is a bleesh. (See Frowk.)

Crayon enlargements of photographs of your uncle in his Odd Fellows’ uniform are bleesh—Kodak snap-shots and flashlights of banquet groups.

Your practical-joking friend sends you bleesh foreign postcards from abroad; and your chauffeur revels in bleesh pictures of crime, with an X showing “where the body was found.”

To the Philistine of the Middle West, the nude in art is bleesh. To the eye-glassed school-ma’am of Brooklyn, the paintings of Cubists and Futurists are bleesher still. (See Ovotch.)

On the “jacket” of the “latest” fiction, we find the blurb; abounding in agile adjectives and adverbs, attesting that this book is the “sensation of the year;” the blurb tells of “thrills” and “heart-throbs,” of “vital importance” and “soul satisfying revelation.” The blurb speaks of the novel’s “grip” and “excitement.” (See Alibosh.)

The circus advertiser started the blurb, but the book publisher discovered a more poignant charm than alliterative polysyllables. “It holds you from the first page—”

Now, you take this “Burgess Unabridged”—it’s got a jump and a go to it—it’s got a hang and a dash and a swing to it that pulls you right out of the chair, dazzles your eyes, and sets your hair to curling. It’s an epoch-making, heart-tickling, gorglorious tome of joy!

So, were not my publishers old-fashioned, would this my book be blurbed.

The bripkin invites a girl to the theatre, but he takes her in a street-car—on a rainy night, too! The bripkin tips the waiter less than ten per cent. of his bill. He carries a cane, but does not wear gloves. He frequents the manicure, and wears near-silk shirts, with frayed cuffs. His hat is “the latest” but his coat sleeves are shiny.

The female bripkin has a button off her shoe; she wears white gloves, but they are badly soiled. She wears a three-quarter-length grey squirrel coat.

American champagne is bripkin—Key-West cigars and domestic beer, and imitation coffee. (See Voip.)

A bripkin umbrella is made of gloria.

The second-rate suburb of a great city is a bripkin, and so is he who dwells therein. He wears a watch-chain strung across his vest. (See Mooble.)

Bripkins are the marked-down gowns and suits, at the tail end of the season; and the green hat, “reduced from $18.75.”

The cowcat will not talk, but oh, how he listens! How he watches! How he criticises! But why speak of the cowcat as “he”? They usually have large, black satin, placid abdomens, or else they are thin and nervous, with acid eyes. (See Yowf.)

How describe a cowcat? There’s nothing about it to describe. It’s a jelly-fish—a heavy jelly-fish, however. It sits upon your stomach, like a nightmare.

Cowcats fill hotel chairs, and the rockers of summer verandahs, knitting gossip. (See Mooble.)

Your wife’s relatives?

Oh, that stiff collar! That binding corset! Those burning feet in the tight shoes! Yes, you are critched, but at the same time you have the moral support of being becomingly and fashionably clad. A critch is half pride and half madness—it’s the martyrdom of fashion. (See Vorge.)

The unaccustomed exquisite in his hard boiled shirt, stiff cuffs and high collar stands critchety, but willing to endure the agonies of the aristocracy.

You may be too cool in decolleté, or too warm in your furs, but vanity vanquishes the critch.

You are critched when you have a picture taken, but that radiant smile survives. At private theatricals all the actors are critched with tights and swords and furbelows—trying to appear at ease. (See Wowze.)

The banker is critched with his silk hat in a high wind; and the dowager, as she carefully arranges her skirts when she is seated. But to be properly critched, you must be a Japanese countess, putting on stays for the first time in your artless, lavender life.

Many women have the culp that they are beautiful, men that they are irresistible, shrewd, or interesting.

A culpid actor is one who thinks he can act, but can’t. His culp is that he is making a hit. (See Splooch.)

The mother has the baby culp; but the infant to other eyes is not so wonderful.

The woman with the culpid taste thinks that no other woman knows how to dress. (See Wumgush.)

The author who has had three letters requesting his autograph, has the culp that he is popular.

That young man who stays till 11.45 P.M. has a culp that he has fascinated yawning Ysobel.

Who invented the diabob? The infamy is attributed to John Ruskin. At any rate, humble things began to lose the dignity of the commonplace; the rolling-pin became exotic in the parlor. The embroidery blossomed in hectic tidies, splashes and drapes. Hand-painting was discovered.

So, from the Spencerian skylark to the perforated “God Bless Our Home.” Now the jigsaw was master; now, the incandescent point that tortured wood and leather into nightmare designs. Plaques began their vogue. (See Gefoojet.)

Diabobical was the hammered brasswork; diabobical the sofa cushion limned with Gibson heads. The decorative fan, genteel; the pampas grass, dyed bright purple; the macramé bags and the seaweed pictures passed; came the embossed pictures stuck on bean-pots and molasses jugs; came the esthetic cat-tail and piano-lamp, “A Yard of Daisies,” and burnt match receivers and catch-alls, ornamented by the family genius.

Ah, Where are the moustache cups of yesteryear?

The type of the digmix is cleaning fish. At first it is disgusting, untidy, uncomfortable. Then, you begin to enjoy it, rather; and finally, as the clean, finished product of your skill appears, there is the refreshing sense of duty well done. (See Gloogo.)

So with all household digmixes, stuffing feathers into pillows, peeling onions, taking up carpets, putting up stove pipes, beating rugs, attending to the furnace and washing dishes. You loathe the work, but, when it is finished, you’re so glad you did it.

The mental digmix is less satisfactory, but just as necessary. Discharging the cook is a digmix. Breaking the news of a death, refusing a man who has proposed, explaining just why you came home at 2 A.M., accompanying a child to a dentist’s, getting a divorce, waiting on a querulous invalid, having a lawsuit with a neighbor,—all are digmixes. (See Moosoo.)

Why, to some, the mere eating of an orange or a grape fruit is a digmix! They feel as if they ought to take a bath and then go straight to bed.

But why enlarge upon a painful subject? After all, life is just one digmix after another.

He rings you up on the telephone, or she rings you up, and drilligates you by the hour, if you are too kind-hearted to hang up the receiver. Of course she has nothing important to say; you know she is leaning back in her chair, smiling, and eating chocolates. (See Lallify.)

The drillig calls in the rush hours of business, sits down, crosses his legs, and nothing moves except his mouth. He is never busy and never hurried. He catches you on the street corner, holds you by the button or lapel, in the middle of a cursing stream of pedestrians, and tells you a long, dull story. “Just a minute, now, I just want to tell you about—” The Ancient Mariner was a drillig. (See Xenogore.)

The public speaker at the banquet rises with a bland smile and looks at his watch. “The hour is so late,” he says, “and there are so many more interesting speakers to be heard from, that I shall detain you with only a few words—” and he drilligs on for an hour and six minutes by the clock.

The drillig catches you in a corner at the club and tells you the story of his play; the young mother nails you to the sofa with her smile, and drilligs you about Baby.

The book agent, anchored in the front door at meal times, is the master drilligator of them all. (See Persotude.)

In old times, they spoke of “Book learning” and worshiped the edicled fool. But we are wiser today and know the hollowness of the edicle.

The edicle is the college professor who has listened to his own talk so long that he has mistaken knowledge for wisdom. The book-worm who has learned to believe that literature is greater than life. (See Snosh.)

A woman is an edicle, who prates “new thought” and juggles the trite phrases of a philosophy too heavy for her comprehension. (See Orobaldity.) A man is an edicle when he quotes Browning or Karl Marx or Herbert Spencer. Most clergymen are edicles, and persons who rave over pictures they don’t understand.

The book reviewer who can’t write a book himself, is an edicle. The dramatic critic is an edicle, for he has failed as a playwright. (See Yowf.)

The college girl who can’t cook is an edicle; the young medico, newly graduated, with an “M.D.” painted on him still fresh, and wet and green,—a mere mass of quivering Latin words. All editors are edicles.

The eegot slaps the favorite sprinter on the back and cheers him on, but switches interest when he fails to finish. The eegot takes the popular side of every subject, curries favor with the rich and prosperous, and is attentive to the belle of the ball.

Four feet away from the popular hero, and you will find the eegots clustered close. (See Elp.)

The eegot votes for the one whom he thinks will win—he believes that the rich can do no wrong.

The eegot always wears “the latest,” and reads only “the best sellers.” (See Ovotch.)

He suddenly discovers his poor country cousin,—after she has married the Lieutenant-Governor.

Molasses draws flies—prosperity breeds the egoid parasite.

The elp is a clever promiser, who doesn’t make good. You never can pin him down,—he always escapes you. He won’t do what he has promised, or pay his debts; but his explanations are always all-but-convincing.

The tradesman is an elp, who promises to deliver those provisions in time for dinner, and always has a good excuse. The ladies’ tailor is an elp—the suit is never done on time. (See Goig.)

At the employment agency, the elps abound. They are always “sure to come” on Thursday. Friday and Saturday pass by.

The elp never quite knows, but would never confess his ignorance. It is impossible to get him to say either “Yes” or “No.”

Most infamous among the elps is the philandering suitor, who is attentive to you for years and years, keeping serious men away, and yet who will not propose. (See Xenogore.)

The fidgeltick tastes good, but is it really worth while? Come now,—doesn’t salad really bore you—unless it is served, as in California, at the beginning of a meal, while you are still hungry? Broiled live lobster! How succulent, yet how meagre its reward to the appetite! Frogs’ legs are fidgelticks, and shad and grape fruit and pistachios. Why can’t such tasteful delicacies be built with the satisfactory architecture of the banana? The artichoke gives perhaps the minimum of reward with the maximum of effect. (See Voip.)

And who does not flinch at a Bent’s water cracker?

To make cranberry sauce with the skins in, and cherry pie with the stones, should be against the law.

So it is, to extract information from a railroad official after an accident. Interviewing the master of a steamer is like getting the meat out of a butternut, or the flesh out of a shrimp. Sooner or later, you will give him up in discouragement. He’s a fidgeltick! (See Jurp.)

Politely you inquire of a ticket seller at the theatre; you might as well talk with a foreigner, or a deaf man. All, all are fidgelticks!

For the flooijab of commerce, see the typical Ethel-Clara dialogues in the comic papers; and yet, one cannot describe the tone—the sugared smile that gives the shot its sting. (See Varm.)

Anent women’s looks, the flooijabs fly fastest.

“Oh, yes, Helen used to be a very beautiful girl!”

“We’re not so young as we used to be, but you do look awfully pretty, today.”

“No,—I don’t think you look a day older,—except when you are tired.”

“I’m so delighted that you are engaged to Harry! How did you do it—‘holding the thought’?”

“They do say she’s awfully fast—but I never noticed anything—I think she’s sweet. Too bad she’s talked about so!”

“I think you gave an awfully good performance—of course, you weren’t a Bernhardt, but then ...” (See Wumgush.)

“I’m so sorry you didn’t make good; it’s a shame! I think you did awfully well, really!”

“I thought your little story was so good. I suppose influence with the editors counts a lot,—doesn’t it?”

The mind is cultivated until it is hypercivilized, but where is the educated heart? The frime, like the fool, is born, not made; no one has told him when to speak and when to remain silent, or when to laugh and when to cry. (See Zobzib.)

The frime knows when you are hungry, when you are thirsty and when you would be let alone. He speaks a person’s name so clearly when he introduces you that you can actually understand.

The frime knows when to come and when to go; he makes the lion as comfortable as the humblest guest. He sends you fruit instead of flowers. The frime knows the etiquette of life and love and death; he likes you in spite of your faults. As a lover, he never makes you or himself ridiculous. As a consoler, he is never guilty of that most ironic bromide: “If there is anything I can do, let me know.” (See Spuzz.)

What is a fud? A woman in curl papers and her oldest kimona. A man in his shirt-sleeves with his suspenders hanging from two buttons, down behind. It is a half built house; half cooked potatoes on the back of the stove. Anyone in stocking feet. (See Frowk.)

No one can help being fuddy, at times, so long as there is house-cleaning and moving to be done; but some fuds are fuddier than others. A house that is being reshingled, for instance, is far less fuddy than an actress washing greasepaint off her face, or stumbling in a peignoir through a Pullman car, her hair tousled, to reach the dressing-room. (See Spigg.)

Ellen’s top bureau drawer is fuddy, after she has tried to find “that veil.” The parlor and library are fuddy after the reception.

It’s an unpleasant subject. Let us end it, with the mention of half-dried wash and unwashed dishes in the kitchen sink. (See Uglet.)

How frowcous is the limerick, in its most perfect form! That frowk which it is just barely possible to recite at a dinner party:— “There was a young lady so thin, that she slightly resembled a pin; don’t think that I’d creep to her window and peep—I was told by a friend, who looked in.”

’Tis a frowcous epoch—eugenics, white slavery, and the “dangerous age” are now the vogue, and a play that’s not a frowk can scarcely make a hit on Broadway. (See Ovotch.)

In the era of “sensibility”—when ladies had the vapors, the sight of a man shaving himself was frowcous. Now, we subscribe for the foreign illustrated comic papers, and speak boldly concerning “Damaged Goods.” (See Bleesh.)

Once a turkey trot was frowcous; bare feet and cocktails—but little is frowcous now. There are so many “things that a young girl ought to know!”

“Oh, no, I don’t want to throw that away yet; I’ll give it away to somebody, some time,” or “We may need it.” This is the doctrine of Gefoojet, which, preached and practiced in New England, has outlived the dogma of infant damnation. A thousand housewife martyrs have suffered years of persecution, testifying to the sublime nonsense. (See Quisty.)

In my grandmother’s wood-house closet, were ten thousand pieces of folded brown paper, and one hundred miles of string, salvaged from by-gone packages in sacrifice to Gefoojet.

Old letters, half used scrap-books, bottles, boxes and fragments of hardware accumulate unceasingly.

What is a Gefoojet? It’s something you haven’t used for two years, an old magazine or your wedding dress.

This is what cupboards and closets, top shelves, whatnots and garrets were invented for.—Gefoojets.

Have you a camera? Go forth and garner gefoojets.

“That thing” you keep because it was given by a dear friend—beware of it—’tis a gefoojet. (See Thusk.)

“Have some more of this—please do—I insist—I made it myself!” So says the gixlet, as she passes the piccalilli. (See Vorge.)

The gixlet insists upon paying your fare everywhere, he begs your pardon, when you step on his foot. He introduces you to everybody he meets. In public, he praises you with excruciating conspicuousness. At home, he insists upon your going to church, or showing you over his new house.

He says, “Why haven’t you been before?” (See Wumgush.)

He takes you on long walks when you visit him in the country, and want just to sit on the verandah and loaf.

The gixlet in the club orders drinks when you don’t want them, and insists upon your drinking them, because he does. The gixlet, in short, is the joyous, friendly dog, that leaps with muddy paws upon your clean, white trousers.

Do you take cold baths all through January, February and March? You’re a gloogo,—especially if you don’t talk about it. (See Yab.)

Do you work over hours at the office? Do you come downtown early? Do you run in on Sundays and finish up a little batch of business? You’re a gloogo.

The gloogo, when young, studies his home lessons, instead of going to that Saturday night dance. In after-life he attends church every Sunday, and puts a quarter in the plate. If he plays golf, he prefers a rainy, cold day. (See Vorge.)

The gloogo elevator runs all night—but it’s a curiosity.

The family gloogo comes to dinner regularly on Wednesdays and Sundays. (See Xenogore.) Elsie Peach’s gloogo calls every day and always invites her to everything. Mrs. Valentine’s maid-servant is a gloogo—she loves to have extra company for dinner.

You are a gloogo, if you read Burgess Unabridged all through.

To one from Missouri, the world is full of goigs. Well you have to “show me,” too, when the new janitor takes possession of the cellar—he’s a goig. There’s the man with the perpetual smile; he’s a goig. Why do we watch the gentleman whose collar buttons behind, or the dog who doesn’t wag his tail? There’s something goigsome about them. He “listens well,”—but! I ha’e me doots! (See Eegot.)

To the fondly doting mother, her son’s sweetheart is always a goig. When he’s engaged, she is still more goigsome. Once married, and the suspense is over. (See Frime.)

Would you be a goig? Then shave your upper lip and grow a chin beard.

The servile affability of an English shopkeeper, rubbing his hands—how goigsome! So is your wife’s man-friend, and the new cook.

But, best of all goigs—or worst—the man who says: “Oh, I’ll surely pay it back next week, at latest!” (See Elp.)