George Ade

Wealthy stockbroker Lemuel Morewood wants his sons, Billy and Tom, to learn the business and marry Emily Donelson and Frances Berkeley, respectively. Billy, however, is infatuated with Mrs. Bruce Guilford, a leader of the "smart set," while Tom loves boxing. At a dinner for which Lemuel hires Bessie Brayton, an orphan from the West, to entertain, Lemuel responds to Bessie's taunts about being old-fashioned by winning a lot of money gambling with Major Bellamy Didsworth, who tries to swindle Bessie, and leaves with her to spend it.

When Tom Redding's wealthy father dies and it turns out that all he left Tom was a mountain of debts, all of his "friends" desert him--except young Mary Austin. Determined to get out from all his debt, Tom heads west and eventually strikes it rich with an oil well. Now wealthy, he hatches a plan to get even with his "friends" in his hometown--by pretending to return home broke but having a colleague secretly buy up as much property in town as he can.

The Fable of the Brash Drummer and the Nectarine

Ernest Coppie, an author, was trying to grind out something that could be sold for enough coin to buy himself a good square meal. He dashed off some sentimental guff called, "When Willie Came to Say Good-Night," and it was punk. He threw it in the wastebasket but when his friend came in he discovered it and set out to sell it. He finally found a magazine editor who gave him a check for $500, and it was like picking money off a bush. The author, who was an old bachelor and a kid hater, was tickled to death to get the dough, but when letters came in congratulating him on his excellent poem and sympathizing with him, he was bored to death.

A star rower is forced to join a good school under a pseudonym because his wealthy dad doesn't like schools that have high academic standards.

Clara was no longer a Spring Chicken, and when she passed the Thirty Mark, she began to worry for fear that she could never Rope In a Bread Earner, so she got busy. There was one chap in particular who looked awfully good to her, but the younger girls were hot on his trail, and did their utmost to keep Clara out of his way. Finally Clara got rid of her competitors in the Man Hunt when they all went to a summer resort. She was surrounded by Suitors, and Mr. Gibbs was very much in evidence. The afternoons that followed were a repetition of the first day, while the girls up at the lake were making a fuss over some little Freshman.

Lemuel Morehouse, the owner of a profitable meatpacking company in Chicago, bemoans the fact that neither of his two sons have the time nor inclination to eat with him. Billy is obsessed with culture, while Tom is a physical fitness nut. At the office, Lemuel is exasperated when Billy arrives for work at four in the afternoon and cannot stay because of a party he is giving that night to unveil a statue he bought for $20,000. Lemuel then finds Tom meeting with his golf committee rather than working. When the boys argue that business is only a means to an end, and that happiness and enjoyment of life are desired goals, Lemuel counters their contentions by declaring that what they really need are wives and tells them that Dorothy and Rose Gregson, the daughters of an old friend, will soon be visiting.

A college flirt lures the nation's best football players to join her school's team.

The story opens with an old couple in the evening of life, sitting by the fireside reminiscing the happenings of their younger days. How the young man had left his country home to seek work in the great city, and after many days of wandering had found employment as an office boy in the same office with the young lady. How she had taken an interest in him and before many days had become more than friends.

Blackstone Cooley, a studious young lawyer, could not see the girls for dust. One day while walking down the street he ran squat into a dame who looked like a million dollars to him. At last he realized he had spotted the queen of the human race. From that time on he tried in every possible way to learn her name and address, but nary a soul did he know who could arrange an introduction. He worried himself sick, and his doctor ordered him away to a summer resort. Still she was constantly on his mind. One day she blew in at the summer hotel, and after two years of waiting he met her. That was plenty, her line of gab queered her from the start. Next day Mr. Cooley beat it for home. Moral: Many who look the limit do not listen very well.

Edward Swinger contrives to win the hand of the lovely Caroline Pickering by selling her father his business - a business that doesn't actually exist.

In order to win the hand of the girl he loves, Ed Swinger creates a phony business to fool her father.

#1: The Household Comedian; #2: Why Essie's Friends Got the Fresh Air; #3: The Prevailing Craze.

He was too big for this world when a Phrenologist told him he was a modern Napoleon.

Once a lot of grown-up girls organized a club for the discussion of current evils. The principal current evil they discussed was man. The object was to find some way to keep them home at nights. One dame thought every wife ought to provide her companion with an intellectual atmosphere so he wouldn't sneak out at night to the thirst parlor.

Tom Clark, the part owner of a luckless gas station in New York, returns to his place of birth for Old Home Week, posing as the millionaire president of the Amalgamated Oil Co. He is chosen as the orator for the homecoming banquet and given complete financial control over an oil well drilled in the town by Coleman and Barton, a pair of oily swindlers. Tom discovers that the well is a fake and has it connected secretly with the local reservoir. A wire from Tom's partner is intercepted, and Tom is exposed as a fraud. Coleman and Barton are about to leave town when Tom fakes a gusher and quickly sells the well back to the swindlers at a profit. The swindlers realize that they have been outsmarted, and their anger convinces the townspeople that Tom has acted in the best interests of the community. Tom is again the toast of the town, feted by its inhabitants and rewarded with the kisses of his sweetheart.

The political bosses knew it was an off year and they needed a Goat to run for City Clerk. They didn't want a regular guy to get "stepped on," so they started out to find a Fish. They found a nice man who ran a feed store and had lots of coin, so they pounced on him. Mr. Bolivar was his name and he drank malted milk and said "whom" and did everything that was nice. They jollied him until he really thought that he was the man for the position, and when his wife tried to save the poor simp, he only said he must answer the call of duty, that the Peepul wanted him. He sometimes wondered if the other fellow would get any votes at all. Little by little the bosses were drawing on his bank account, and on the night of election he was broke. He lost the fight by 20,000 votes, and when he looked for his pushers, they had skipped.

Kate had a very devoted beau known as George. George loved the girl so hard that he loved all her relatives. He thought it his duty to give three hearty cheers for Father and Mother, and likewise he worked for a stand-in with Tom, her husky brother. His gushing affections for Kate slopped over on Sister Lil, and this caused Kate to sit up and take notice. He went shopping with mother and carried everything she purchased. She was peeved but George thought he was making a great hit. Next day he tried to cultivate the big athletic brother, but found his Waterloo.

Based on George Ade's play which, in part, was based on an incident in a 1902 election in Wyoming, with women's-right-to-vote playing a large role. Here, Jim Hackler, local party-boss in a Wyoming county, has to decide to do what's right and lose the election, or what's wrong and win it.

Story of a war hero who preferred fishing to politics.

Following another instance of the perennial defeat of the Atwater College football team, President Witherspoon is told that unless better athletes can be induced to come to Atwater, he will be asked to resign. Acting upon the suggestion of Professor Jelicoe, Jane, the professor's beautiful daughter, uses her personal charm to draw noted football stars from neighboring schools by a series of ruses at a vacationing spot. Billy Bolton, son of a financial magnate, falls for Jane and to prove himself registers under another name and works his way through school, attaining scholastic and athletic honors. Through the jealousy of another girl, Billy learns of Jane's trickery and persuades the athletes not to play;

At sight of a woman, he got a ticket for speeding.

Aunt Mahaley knew Uncle Brewster was sporty, and when he went to the city to pay off his mortgage she warned him about being too free with his coin. He visited Roger Talbot, holder of the mortgage, who handed him two cigars. Uncle Brewster was dying for a smoke, but he remembered what Aunt Mahaley told him about cutting down expenses, and traded the cigars for a couple of boiled eggs saving the price of lunch. At a fruit exhibit he filled his carpet bag, saving supper money. Before leaving the hotel he packed away everything in sight, so when he returned to Aunt Mahaley he was minus railroad fare but plus many towels and hotel souvenirs.

Once there was a broad girl who had nothing to do except the two-by-four midget known as her husband, so she decided to help the poor. She thought it was a big help to the lowly and uncultured to see what a real razmataz lady was like, so when she was all hooked up behind, she galloped forth to do things to the poor.