AB

BOUT 7,256 years ago a solemn-looking old gentleman named Menes K. Ptsch, High Priest of Astrological Astronomy of the temple of Ptah Ptut, Upper Egypt, stuck his head out of his window and said he had just observed a comet. Old Menes K. Ptsch had the general appearance of a beardless goat, but he stood high in the Astrological Astronomical circles of his day, and when he stuck his head out of his window and uttered words someone was always on hand to listen.

"Behold and take notice!" he chanted. "I, Menes K. Ptsch, seventh son of a bald

grandfather, do speak. And, behold, I have discovered a new comet in the skies, the said comet being large and juicy, like unto an overripe cantaloupe, of a circumference of ten million versts, with a density of approximately seventeen kilowatts. And, behold, it hath a tail seventy-five million Sabbath-day's journeys in longness. Whoop la!"

When they heard this news, those who listened looked at the sky and they saw the comet. It seemed about the size of a pin head and about as brilliant as a dead lightning bug.

"My gracious!" they exclaimed, but Professor Menes K. Ptsch was chanting again.

"And, behold," he sang out, "the comet approaches the earth apace, or, I may even say, a couple of apaces.

She is some comet, if I did discover her myself. She cometh onward with studding sails set, a tank chock full of gasoline and a clean hock action."

His hearers gasped.

"Behold," said Professor Menes K. Ptsch, "I calculate her speed to be seven billion numidian litres per hecktogram, or even more or less."

This caused tremendous excitement. A vast wave of fear swept over his hearers.

"And-and did you say she would hit the earth?" one asked tremulously.

"Behold, I have not said," replied the wise old professor.

Just then a reporter for the Upper Egypt Lily Pad and Papyrus Leaf pushed into the crowd with his pencil and notebook in his hand. He was a brisk young man and hungry for news.

"Now, look here!" he said smartly. "Just cut out about half a dozen of those 'behold' things and come down to brass tacks. You have discovered a comet. It is pointed at the earth. Just what chance is there that the comet will hit the earth, break the earth into eight million pieces and, after setting the pieces afire, consume them utterly? That's what the Upper Egypt Lily Pad and Papyrus Leaf wants to know. What are the chances?"

When he was asked this, Professor Menes K. Ptsch looked extremely solemn.

then, "I have given thought to your question. The chance of

the comet hitting the earth is clearly expressed by the following formula, namely, to wit: Seven times eight, less the square root of the length of the Nile, divided by the desultory circumnavigation of the primitive isosocles as compared with the in hoc signes of 8762, as last seen on Friday the thirteenth."

When he had said this, Professor Menes K. Ptsch coughed gently and drew in his head. "The professor says," wrote the reporter in his note-book, "that the

And that is the general outcome of most of the things we worry about.

LAST April, I was on a lecture tour and I had to travel light, with only one pair of day trousers and one pair of dress trousers. I had to skip around like a flea on a hot griddle to keep my engagements and several days before my date at Grand Rapids, I began to worry about the knees of my trousers. I am a first-class worrier. Ever since I was a small boy, I have been one of the most noted worriers north of the Mason and Dixon line and able to worry about more things in a given length of time than any man I ever knew. I have also large, virile knee-joints, like a horse with spavin.

comet will hit the earth and set it on fire on Friday the thirteenth; labor troubles, strikes and storms will not be permitted to interfere.

As soon as this news was printed and spread broad

cast, the people of Upper Egypt began to worry about the comet and the end that was coming to the earth on Friday the 13th. It was no mean worry either. None of the Egyptians, then alive, had ever died through a comet striking the earth, and they began some first-class worrying.

Looking back across the long period of time their worrying seems rather silly to us, but it was just as important to them then as your worrying and my worrying are to us now. Life was precious to them and they knew that if the end of the world came and killed them they would be dead. So they worried.

The records show that 74 worried to such an extent that they dropped dead of heart disease; 862 worried themselves insane and drowned themselves in the Nile; 408 fretted so over the prospect that they hung themselves. And then Friday the 13th, went by and nothing unusual happened. It was a beautiful calm day, with a gentle cool breeze and onions sold at six kopeks per cubit less than the day before.

When I was down in Arkansas, early in March, I began to worry about the afternoon speaking date at Grand Rapids. Aman can't wear evening trousers in the afternoon, and, riding on a train is bad for trouser knees. It bags them as nothing else

can.

Again and again, I consulted my route list, hoping I could find some way of beating the trains so I could have time to get my day trousers pressed at Grand Rapids before I had to stand up before that audience of ladies, but I could not see

how I could do it.

I worried all through Arkansas, Tennessee, Missouri, Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and down into Ohio. Night after night, I dreamed of standing before the elite of Grand Rapids, in trousers that looked like the hind legs of an elephant, and I would awake in a cold sweat and

groan.

By the time I reached Akron, Ohio, I was almost a nervous wreck, and I feared the worst for Grand Rapids. There was one chance in a million that I could find time to have the bags taken out of my knees in Akron, and when I got there I found that chance gone. I did not have a minute to attend to pressing. There was a luncheon for me; and, although only men were present, I felt it best to wear my trousers, for I do not wish to be thought eccentric even in Akron.

LEFT Akron at 11:30 P. M., in my dress suit, for Grand Rapids, my worry still sparking on all six cylinders, and got off the train at Orrville to change cars. This gave me plenty of time to worry about my baggy knees. I sat in the station there and waited and worried and did some of the most thorough and workmanlike worrying I had ever done, and about 2:10 A. M., when the train was due, I began to worry

about the train, because it was late, having been held up in the Pittsburgh yards by the "outlaw" strike.

For an industrious and eager worrier, no better combination of circumstances could be planned, and I made the most of it, doing some of the finest doublebarreled worrying I have ever done.

The one thing a lecturer must do is to arrive in time to keep his engagement, and I saw that if this train was much late I could not get to Detroit in time to catch the train for Grand Rapids. Then I would be too late to keep my engagement there that afternoon. I was thus able to worry lest I could not get to Grand Rapids in time and, also, because I might get there in time. I can't think of any much finer opportunity for a whole-souled worrier than I had right there, as I sat handsomely garbed in a hard-front white shirt and evening clothes at two o'clock in the morning in the Orrville station, the snores of the other transfer passengers beating regularly like the rumble of distant thunder.

Men who have given their souls to worrying and have made it, so to speak, a life work, are usually satisfied with a fifty-fifty worrying chance, but I had a hundred-per-cent worrying opportunity. I, therefore, felt my white bow tie to see that it was neat and tidy and gave my whole mind to the worrying job I had on hand. Eight new lines of care developed on my face and, in the silence between the snores of my fellow waiters, I could hear my few remaining brownish hairs turning gray with a sharp click.

NOW

OW and then, I got up and looked at the clock. On an average, I looked at the clock every fourteen seconds. Wellington, praying for night, or Blucher, at Waterloo, did not fret half as much as I did. Some day they can put a brass tablet in the Orrville station reading, "Here E. P. Butler spent fifty miserable years one night in April, 1920." I had plenty to worry about. If the train came in time to make my connection, it was baggy knees; if it did not come in time, it was a break in my lecture engagement. Nothing but the worst could happen either way.

The result-aside from the wear and tear on my mental machinery -was that Grand Rapids postponed my engagement, when I telegraphed, until the evening. Then I was able

to wear my evening trousers, and the lecture was a perfect success. I never looked handsomer or less baggy at the knees, and the lecture room was crowded.

And that is about all worry

amounts to.

SINCE the time of old Menes K.

Ptsch, the astronomers have been discovering new comets every fifty years or so and letting fall idle hints that if the comet hits the earth

the Stock Exchange will close for several billion years and every life-insurance company go broke paying death losses, but no comet has yet lived up to any such specifications. The end of the world continues to be postponed indefinitely. The world and the worries have gone right on doing business at the old stand.

Foresight is one thing but worry is something else. Foresight is preparing sanely for some event that is reasonably liable to occur. Worry is throwing mental fits about something we can't prevent and that very likely will never happen anyway. Ordering my coal in the spring is foresight, but getting all worked up and disturbed because there is only enough unmined coal in the United States to last 7000 years is worry. Before 7000 years have fled into the past, someone may invent a furnace that will consume asparagus tips or cod liver oil, for all I know. Indeed, such a furnace may be invented in 2000 years or 3000 years.

And, anyway, I'll not be much interested in the fuel question 7000 years from now. In my day, I have worried about nearly everything, but I refuse to worry about the fuel supply of 8920 A. D. In 8920 A. D., my descendants may be Esquimaux and burn seal fat, or, Brazilians and bask in the solar heat. I certainly am a fool if I sit up all night in dress suit and white tie to worry about the fuel supply of 8920 A. D.

Or, about the fuel supply of 1961 A. D., either. I am now fifty years old and I figure that, if I avoid useless worry, I may possibly live forty years longer, which would bring my interesting career to a close in 1960. I shall not, therefore, worry about the coal that may not be in my bin in 1961. I am absolutely convinced that a man is foolish to worry over

the condition in which the interior of his coalbin may be twelve months after the floral pillow and the rosebeset anchor have wilted. He might better worry for fear his halo will be a 78 size when his head measures only 6% at its halo altitude. A man would look like

a guy, strutting around with a halo that slipped down over his ears and clung around his neck.

I have never heard of any one worrying about the fit of his halo, but there would be more sense in worrying about that than in worrying about most of the things we do worry about.

IAM glad to be able

to say that I do not worry over the condition of my coal-bin in 1961.

When it comes to that, my strong common sense steps in and tells me not to worry; but when I think of 1927, I am tempted to heave a deep sigh, wrinkle my brow and fret myself sick for, 1927, is but a short six years hence and there is every indication that the thermometer will fall below ninety degrees in the shade, that winter. Here, we have something worth worrying about.

Many things may happen.

In 1927 there may be a mine strike, a railroad strike and a coal-truck drivers' strike. There are over two thousand things that may happen in 1927 to keep my coal-bin empty.

It is even possible that my financial condition may be such that when I go to the telephone and ask my coal man to fill my bin he will give a loud, mocking laugh and stick out his tongue at me.

If I wished, I could convince myself that I had better begin worrying this afternoon and keep it up for the next six and one half years, but I don't wish. I refuse to so much as worry about my coal supply for 1921. I am not even worrying about my coal for 1920. It is now-as I write this-early in the summer and, before I need coal, I may die of sun stroke and never need coal again. So, why worry? I shall proceed calmly on my way, merely pausing, now and then, to give my coal man Hail Columbia with a Bolshevik accent and a casual reference to my banker, and if the middle of winter comes and no coal is in my bin I shall burn the player-piano rolls, beginning with "The Maple Leaf Rag."

Worry never pays, and it is one of the most costly pastimes. The hair-dye industry is largely supported by those whose hair has turned gray through worry

ing, and the world is full of gay young heirs who were able to break the speed laws in $7000 automobiles ten years earlier than they expected, because father, or uncle Henry, or Aunt Jane happened to have the worry habit.

I know a lot of people of about my age-and some much younger-who worry because they are growing old. I can't imagine a more senseless thing to worry about. If there is any one thing in the universe that cannot be prevented it is growing old. The moment a baby opens its eyes at birth and squawks at the light, it begins to grow old; and but one thing can stop the process-it can die young. It continues to grow older so long as it lives. Worrying can't stop it; if anything hastens the process worry does. The only cure for growing old is dying young. This has been tried on Barred Rock chickens and red calves with white spots, and it works according to directions. The result is spring broilers and veal; but, while I have never asked a spring broiler, no veal chop has ever told me it was happier for not being permitted to become ribs of beef.

IT is a remarkable fact, but I have met very few men

or women who have worried about death-their own deaths-while I have met thousands who were worried by a fear of dying of some particular disease; and yet, I believe very few die of the particular disease of which they worry. A man will tell me that he has known for years that he has a weak heart. He has been worried for thirty years by the way his heart beats a few times, stops to roll over on the other side, and then leaps forward madly as if someone had put a foot on the accelerator by mistake. He will go on to say that the last thing he does at night and the first thing he does in the morning is to worry about his heart. He says the very first physician that examined him for life insurance and passed him, being a friend -told him his heart was peculiar and that, probably by the time he was forty he would be a dead man. Since then, every few years, another doctor had looked grave over the way his heart sparked, and warned him to prepare for the worst and give up the use of graham crackers, and apple sauce, and blueberry pie, or something of the sort.

"I'm always ready," he says, "for I know that when my end comes it will come suddenly. Click! and my heart will cease to beat. You cannot understand how awful such knowledge is. For forty years, day after day, I have expected the fatal moment, and I have not had a minute free from worry."

That man, after forty-five years of worry because he was to die of heart disease, went down into Missouri to buy a stone quarry, and was kicked to death by a mule! While a Missouri mule is a legally recognized form of sudden death, it has not yet been classed as heart disease. It comes under the head of dangerous explosives.

THERE is one statistical table the insurance com

panies have not yet prepared, and I wish they would get at it. I'd like to see it. It would show what causes of death their policy holders worried over and what finally killed them. In not one case in ten

All my life I have been one of the most consistent worriers and I have deserved to have my name in large type on page 1 of the "Worrier's Year Book," ever since I was old enough to take the good old rubber nipple between my gums and imbibe the good old milk. Looking back over my career of worrying, I believe I must have worried in my cradle. I probably worried because the bottle of milk I was consuming might be the last I would ever have; because the cradle might tip over and spill me under the stove; and because safety pins were not yet invented.

It is to be remarked that I did not get out of the cradle and hustle up more milk, or saw off the cradle rockers or invent the safety pin. It is not on record that worry ever led a man to do anything useful. To say so is like saying a man can prevent his house from burning to the ground by looking at an advertisement of a fire-insurance company. The full-fledged worrier is like a man who does not want his house to burn, because he loves his house, and, also, because it is not insured, and who happens on to a billboard with a fireextinguisher advertisement painted on it. He does not then, as foresight would suggest, go and buy fire extinguishers and have his house insured. No, he borrows a camp chair and plants himself before the fire-extinguisher billboard and sits there, day and night, making himself miserable and irritable thinking of his house in flames, his wife and children perishing miserably, of himself, perhaps, arrested, through some chain of circumstantial evidence for arson and murder. That is the worrier. That is the sanity of the mental processes.

When I was young, I used to worry about parties. I worried because I might arrive too early and because I might be too late and because my pockets were so

Another doctor looked grave over the way his heart sparked, and advised him to give up blueberry pie

inconveniently situated that I would be unable to get my feet into them when my feet became the cynosure of all eyes, as I was sure they would. I was always miserable for days before a party; and when I finally reached the party, I found I had wasted all that worry. Usually I had such a delightful time that some grown-up had to come to me and say gently, "You must remember, Ellis, that we are all trying to be little gentlemen and ladies here. Give Annie her hairbow this instant."

After I went home, the party-giving family held a consultation to decide whether the furniture could be mended or if a new set was necessary.

If you take a day off sometime, and check up your worries of the past year, or month, you will be surprised to see how few-probably not one-had any sane basis of fact. I wish I had a book in which I had written down, as they accrued, all the worriments that I let grab hold of me in the last twenty-five years. I wish I could have a glance at such a record left by you. If you are a first-class worrier, you have worried over the coming end of the world, death, bankruptcy, starvation, coal, what Johnnie will be when he grows up, the pain in your left leg, next month's bills, the slice in your drive, the Bolsheviks, whether you put out the cat, the state of your business affairs and several thousand other things that turned out right in the end. And the worrying you did had nothing whatever to do with bringing about a satisfactory state of things. It merely beclouded your intellect; put sand in your year

case.

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