_ 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.
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=BACHELOR= From Latin
baculus, a stick, unattached. Hence, an unattached man, which any lady may stick, stick to, or get stuck on.
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=BACKBITER= A mosquito.
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=BALANCE= Something wanted by book-keepers and often lost by topers. May be found in a cash-book or the kangaroo gait.
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=BANDIT= An outlaw. See =ALDERMAN=.
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=BARBER= A brilliant conversationalist, who occasionally shaves and cuts hair. Syn. for Phonograph.
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=BARS= Things found in harbors, hotels, fences, prisons, courts and music. (Those found in courts and in music are full of beats).
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=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 foot-ball scrimmage. (Old spelling
Bark-gain).
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=BASEBALL= A game in which the young man who bravely strikes out for himself receives no praise for it.
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=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.
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=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.
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=BENEDICT= A married male.
=BENEDICTINE= A married female.
=BENEDICTION= Their children.
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=BERTH= An aid to sleep, invented by Pullman. Lower preferred.
=BIRTH= An aid to life, discovered by Woman. Higher preferred.
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=BICYCLE-SKIRT= A abbreviated garment that makes women look shorter and men longer.
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=BIGAMY= A form of insanity in which a man insists on paying three board bills instead of two.
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=BILLIOUSNESS= A liver complaint often mistaken for piety.
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=BILL-OF-FARE= A list of eatables. Distinguished from Menu by figures in the right-hand column.
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=BIOGRAPH= A stereopticon picture taken with a chill and shown with tremors.
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=BIRDIE= A term a woman is apt to apply to a man she is playing for a jay.
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=BIRTHDAY= Anniversary of one's birth. Observed only by men and children.
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=BLUBBER= The useful product of a dead whale. The useless product of a live baby.
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=BLUE= The only color we can feel. =INVISIBLE BLUE= A policeman.
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=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.
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=BOARD= An implement for administering corporal punishment, used by mothers and land-ladies. "The Festive Board" may be a shingle, a hair-brush a fish-hash breakfast or a stewed prune supper.
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=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.
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=BONNETS= A female head trouble, which is contracted the latter part of Lent and breaks out on Easter.
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=BOODLE= Money, born of poor, but dishonest parents, and taken in by the Graft family.
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=BORROW= v. t., to swap hot air for cold coin.
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=BOWER= A shady retreat, in general.
=BOWERY= A shady retreat in New York.
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=BRACE= Security for the trousers.
=BRACER= Security for the stomach.
=BRACELET= Security for the pawn-broker.
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=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.
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=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.
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=BRASS BAND= A clever though somewhat complicated arrangement for holding a crowd together.
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=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.
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=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.
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=BREVITY= A desirable quality in the Fourth of July oration but not in the fireworks.
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=BROKE= A word expressing the ultimate condition of one who is too much bent on speculating.
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=BUM= A fallen tough.
=BUMP= A tough fall.
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=BUNCO= The art of disseminating knowledge in the rural districts.
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=BY-STANDER= One who is injured in a street fight.
People who live in glass houses should dress in the dark. _