A stitch in time saves embarrassing exposure.
BABY From Grk. babai, wonderful. Parents are yet to be heard from who don't think theirs is a "wonder." A nocturnal animal to which everyone in a sleeping-car is eager to give a wide berth.
BACHELOR From Latin baculus, a stick, unattached. Hence, an unattached man, which any lady may stick, stick to, or get stuck on.
BACKBITER A mosquito.
BALANCE Something wanted by book-keepers and often lost by topers.
May be found in a cash-book or the kangaroo gait.
BANDIT An outlaw. See ALDERMAN.
BARBER A brilliant conversationalist, who occasionally shaves and cuts hair. Syn. for Phonograph.
BARS Things found in harbors, hotels, fences, prisons, courts and music. (Those found in courts and in music are full of beats).
BARGAIN A disease common to women, caught in the Sunday papers and developed in department Stores on Mondays. Symptoms, loud talk, pushing and shoving, a combination prize-fight and football scrimmage. (Old spelling 'Bark-gain).
BASEBALL A game in which the young man who bravely strikes out for himself receives no praise for it.
BAT Senior partner of Bat, Ball & Co., and never found without the rest of the firm, as it takes several high-balls to make one short bat.
BEACH A strip of sand, skirted by water; covered with lady-killers in summer, life-savers in winter, and used as a haven--or heaven--for Smacks the year around.
BENEDICT A married male.
BENEDICTINE A married female.
BENEDICTION Their children.
BERTH An aid to sleep, invented by Pullman. Lower preferred.
BIRTH An aid to life, discovered by Woman. Higher preferred.
BICYCLE-SKIRT A abbreviated garment that makes women look shorter and men longer.
BIGAMY A form of insanity in which a man insists on paying three board bills instead of two.
BILLIOUSNESS A liver complaint often mistaken for piety.
BILL-OF-FARE A list of eatables. Distinguished from Menu by figures in the right-hand column.
BIOGRAPH A stereopticon picture taken with a chill and shown with tremors.
BIRDIE A term a woman is apt to apply to a man she is playing for a jay.
BIRTHDAY Anniversary of one's birth. Observed only by men and children.
BLUBBER The useful product of a dead whale. The useless product of a live baby.
BLUE The only color we can feel. INVISIBLE BLUE A policeman.
BLUSH A temporary erythema and calorific effulgence of the physiognomy, aeteologized by the perceptiveness of the sensorium, in a predicament of inequilibrity, from a sense of shame, anger or other cause, eventuating in a paresis of the vase-motorial, muscular filaments of the facial capillaries, whereby, being divested of their elasticity, they become suffused with a radiance emanating from an intimidated praecordia.
BOARD An implement for administering corporal punishment, used by mothers and landladies. "The Festive Board" may be a shingle, a hair-brush a fish-hash breakfast or a stewed prune supper.
BOHEMIA (Not on the map.) A land flowing with canned milk and distilled honey and untroubled by consistency, convention, conscience or cash. A land to which many are called and few chosen.
BONE One Dollar--the original price of a wife. Note, Adam, who had to give up one bone before he got Eve.
BONNETS A female head trouble, which is contracted the latter part of Lent and breaks out on Easter.
BOODLE Money, born of poor, but dishonest parents, and taken in by the Graft family.
BORROW v. t., to swap hot air for cold coin.
BOWER A shady retreat, in general.
BOWERY A shady retreat in New York.
BRACE Security for the trousers.
BRACER Security for the stomach.
BRACELET Security for the pawn-broker.
BRAIN The top-floor apartment in the Human Block, known as the Cranium, and kept by the Sarah Sisters--Sarah Brum and Sarah Belum, assisted by Medulla Oblongata. All three are nervous, but are always confined to their cells. The Brain is done in gray and white, and furnished with light and heat, hot or cold water, (if desired), with regular connections to the outside world by way of the Spinal Circuit. Usually occupied by the Intellect Bros.,--Thoughts and Ideas--as an Intelligence Office, but sometimes sub-let to Jag, Hang-Over & Co.
BRAND Something carried on the hip, by either beast or man. Can be found on the outside of a short, red steer, or the inside of a long, black bottle.
BRASS BAND A clever though somewhat complicated arrangement for holding a crowd together.
BRICK An admirable person made of the right sort of clay and possessing plenty of sand. What your friends call you before you go to the wall--but never afterward.
BRIMSTONE A little bit of Hades, which finds its match on earth and smells to heaven. Better to strike it here than in the hereafter.
BREVITY A desirable quality in the Fourth of July oration but not in the fireworks.
BROKE A word expressing the ultimate condition of one who is too much bent on speculating.
BUM A fallen tough.
BUMP A tough fall.
BUNCO The art of disseminating knowledge in the rural districts.
BY-STANDER One who is injured in a street fight.
People who live in glass houses should dress in the dark.
