Mr. Lobel's Apoplexy by Irvin S. Cobb — Read

The real purpose of this is to tell about Mr. Lobel's attack of / apoplexy. What comes before must necessarily be in its nature / preliminary and preparatory, leading up to the climactic stroke which / leaves the distinguished victim stretched upon the bed of affliction.

First let us introduce our principal. Reader, meet Mr. Max Lobel, / president of Lobel Masterfilms, Inc., also its founder, its chief / stockholder and its general manager. He is a short, broad, thick, / globular man and a bald one, wearing gold-rimmed spectacles, carrying a / gold-headed cane and using a private gold-mounted toothpick after meals. / His collars are of that old-fashioned open-faced kind such as our / fathers and Mr. John D. Rockefeller, Sr., used to wear; collars rearing / at the back but shorn widely away in front to show two things -- namely, / the Adam's apple and that Mr. Lobel is conservative. But for his / neckwear he patronizes those shops where ties are exclusively referred / to as _scarves_ and cost from five dollars apiece up, which proves also / he is progressive and keeps abreast of the times. When he walks he / favors his feet. Mostly, though, he rides in as good a car as domestic / currency can buy in foreign marts.