Jobbers and Jibbers.

As one man's meat is another's mote, so is one man's job another's jib. Sailors and tailors, bakers and brokers, airmen and postmen are examples of opposing jiblets.

Life's Mammoth Circus provides acts which range from the depths of the sawdust to the heights of the Stardust.

Seldom can one performer understand why the other does the thing he does. The contortionist turns up his toes at the trapezist; the seal trainer considers the lion tamer a glorified cat's-meat-man.

It's odd how full the world is of odd jobs. We are prompted to ask:—

What impulse makes the diver dive,
The girder-galloper connive
To offer Fate an hourly query?
What makes the steeplejack so cheery?
What first induced these men to frisk
With Fate whilst here and there they whisk—
One up above, one down below,
Both up the pole if they are slow?
And men who hazard widowed wives
To gather tusks for dinner knives
By stalking elephants and rhinos—
What makes them start their jungle shinos?
The men who train the lions to mew
And teach that it's not nice to chew
Their trainers—surely they could see
A job less prone to R.I.P.
And why, forsooth, do parachuters
Jump out of things without their tutors,
When they could gain as much renown
By jumping up instead of down?
The men who tickle snakes—not half!
And steal their venom when they laugh,
The men who swing on high trapezes
In spangled tights and pink chemises,
The fellow who essays to split
The atom with a brace and bit,
The wrestlers who, like bounding kegs,
Complete their days with corkscrew legs,
The fellows who, ten thousand strong,
Do funny things that seem all wrong
To others who, for love or money,
Do different things which seem as funny!
Odd's life! Such jobs of work there be
That beat the band on land and sea.
In all the things man does—begobs!
He's sure to set himself—odd jobs.