Zut and Other Parisians (Illustrated)

by Guy Wetmore Carryl

Overview

1903. A collection of stories from the American humorist and poet.

Contents: Zut; Caffiard, Deus ex Machina; The Next Corner; The Only Son of His Mother; The Tuition of Dodo Chapuis; Le Pochard; A Latter-Day Lucifer; Poire!; Papa Labesse; In the Absence of Monsieur; and Little Tapin.

Zut

Side by side, on the avenue de la Grande Armée, stand the épicerie of Jean-Baptiste Caille and the salle de coiffure of Hippolyte Sergeot, and between these two there is a great gulf fixed, the which has come to be through the acerbity of Alexandrine Caille (according to Espérance Sergeot), through the duplicity of Espérance Sergeot (according to Alexandrine Caille). But the veritable root of all evil is Zut, and Zut sits smiling in Jean-Baptiste's doorway, and cares naught for anything in the world, save the sunlight and her midday meal.

When Hippolyte found himself in a position to purchase the salle de coiffure, he gave evidence of marked acumen by uniting himself in the holy—and civil—bonds of matrimony with the retiring patron's daughter, whose dot ran into the coveted five figures, and whose heart, said Hippolyte, was as good as her face was pretty, which, even by the unprejudiced, was acknowledged to be forcible commendation. The installation of the new establishment was a nine days' wonder in the quartier. It is a busy thoroughfare at its western end, is the avenue de la Grande Armée, crowded with bicyclists and with a multitude of creatures fearfully and wonderfully clad, who do incomprehensible things in connection with motor-carriages. Also there are big cafés in plenty, whose waiters must be smoothly shaven: and moreover, at the time when Hippolyte came into his own, the porte Maillot station of the Métropolitain had already pushed its entrée and sortie up through the soil, not a hundred metres from his door, where they stood like atrocious yellow tulips, art nouveau, breathing people out and in by thousands. There was no lack of possible custom. The problem was to turn possible into 5probable, and probable into permanent; and here the seven wits and the ten thousand francs of Espérance came prominently to the fore. She it was who sounded the progressive note, which is half the secret of success.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940148764182
Publisher:	Lost Leaf Publications
Publication date:	07/17/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	936 KB

About the Author

Carryl was born in New York City, the first-born of author Charles Edward Carryl and Mary R. Wetmore.
He had his first article published in The New York Times when he was 20 years old. In 1895, at the age of 22, Carryl graduated from Columbia University. During his college years he had written plays for amateur performances, including the very first Varsity Show. One of his professors wasHarry Thurston Peck, who was scandalized by Carryl’s famous quote “It takes two bodies to make one seduction,” which was a somewhat risqué statement for those times.
After graduation, in 1896 he became a staff writer for Munsey's Magazine under Frank Munsey and he was later promoted to managing editor of the magazine. Later he went to work for Harper's Magazine and was sent to Paris. While in Paris he wrote for Life, Outing, Munsey’s, and Collier’s, as well as his own independent writings.
Some of Carryl's better-known works were his humorous poems that were parodies of Aesop's Fables, such as “The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven” and of Mother Goose nursery rhymes, such as “The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet,” poems which are still popular today. He also wrote a number of humorous parodies of Grimm's Fairy Tales, such as “How Little Red Riding Hood Came To Be Eaten” and “How Fair Cinderella Disposed of Her Shoe.” His humorous poems usually ended with a pun on the words used in the moral of the story.
You are only absurd when you get in the curd,
But you’re rude when you get in the whey.
—from “The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet”
Guy Carryl died in 1904 at age 31 at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.