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WADSWORTH: 1. A fabled people, whose remains are found in the Genesee Valley, who chased an anise-seed bag around the steamheat and pretended to be bored by existence. 2. Any one with more buzz-fuzz than brains.

Warrior: 1. A soldier de luxe. 2. A successful, patriotic thug who has been dead fifty years or more. 3. A fearless person who gains renown by the number of alcoholic drinks he has taken in a day and by the variety and virulence of the venereal diseases he has contracted. 4. A myth, a fable, a lie.

Waves: The thoughts of the sea, which, like human wave-thoughts, roll on, roll back, roll up and spray the void.

Wealth: A cunning device of Fate whereby men are made captive, and burdened with responsibilities from which only Death can file their fetters.

Wife: 1. In good society, a publicity agent who advertises her husband's financial status through conspicuous waste and conspicuous leisure. 2. In the submerged tenth, a punching-bag and something handy for batting up flies. 3. A man's mental mate, and therefore his competitor in the race for power. 4. The other half of the sphere. (This view is usually regarded as a vagary, and any one holding it is apt to be pointed out as strange, peculiar, erratic and unsafe.)

Wine: An infallible antidote to commonsense and seriousness; an excuse for deeds otherwise unforgivable.

Wisdom: A term Pride uses when talking of Necessity.

Wise Man: One who sees the storm coming before the clouds appear.

Wit: The thing that fractures many a friendship.

Woman: 1. The First Cause. 2. A being created for the purpose of voting. 3. Any one with an allowance that is occasionally paid, but which can't be collected. 4. A pet, a plaything, a scullion, a thing to die for, or a thing to kill. 5. A being to get rid of or to secure—to run away from, or with, as the case may be. 6. Among the Ancients, a slave, a chattel; among the Moderns, a financial swashbuckler. Synonyms: sphinx, devil, angel, liar, spendthrift.

War: The sure result of the existence of armed men.

We: The smear of life against the radiant x.

Whisky: The Devil's right bower.

Words: The airy, fairy humming-birds of the imagination.

Wordsworth (William): The only Lilliputian that slipped under the canvas into Olympus.

Work: 1. That which keeps us out of trouble. 2. A plan of God to circumvent the Devil.

Worms: 1. The final word in criticism. 2. At the last analysis.

Worry: Ironic nurse to old bedridden Dame Care. E. g., "I should worry"—famous saying of the Infinite Nix at twelve o'clock Saturday night of the Sixth Day as he threw down his tools and sent the Earth about its business.