the great highway of a city with a company of actors the very least of whom received as weekly emolument some nuggets nine hundred and more. And citizens traveled from ulterior Haarlm and the far reaches of Brukkelhyn and counties beyond the Duchy of Nhuyohrk to see the costly actors play the poet's work. And the citizens looked at one another sorely perplexed, for they felt no strange tears creep into their eyes nor odd pullings at the strings of their hearts.

"Art hell!" they said.

XXXIX

OFFSPRING

Egotism and Carnality married and gave birth to a child.

They named it Love.

XL

V. C.

The child, entering the dark room at night, hummed a tune to hide his fear and frightened a mouse who was playing in a far corner. The mouse ran blindly under the child's foot and the child, believing the mouse was his grandmother's ball of wool, gave it a vigorous kick and killed it.

XLI

BUT—

"But——" interposed the young woman.

A gleam came into the eyes of the man who coveted and who had long and vainly laid subtle siege against her.

He appreciated now that it was merely a matter of time.

XLII

CONJECTURE

The pretty girl looked up at the stars, wondering....

The stars looked down at the pretty girl, wondering....

XLIII

THE JUDGMENT OF SOLOMON

To his court spake Solomon: "I seek another woman for wife. But I have at length learned wisdom in these matters. So go you bring before me fifty or more you deem most suitable. And from these I shall select with deliberation and care and wisdom that one that will best be fitted for my throne-side and the bearing of children." And they went forth into the kingdom and brought before Solomon women who were strong and women who were wise and women who were gentle and women who were serious with the grave problems of life—the pick of the women of all the great kingdom who best were suited to the king.... Solomon, weighing studiously the merits of each and pondering the one whom he might most appropriately take unto him as best fitted for wife and mother, suddenly caught sight, on the far edge of the crowd, of a little flower girl with a cunning dimple in her ear....

XLIV

THE SUPERNATURAL

"What is my name?" asked August Kraut of the Ouija board, as his hands guided the apparatus hither and thither.

"August Kraut," responded the Ouija board.

XLV

CURIOSITY

A young woman, not content with delighting in the exquisite beauty of a magnolia bloom at a distance, came close to it and, coming close, touched it to make certain of its reality and, touching it, turned its fragile white petals to an ugly brown.

A young woman decided to analyze her lover's affections....

XLVI

THE MIRROR

In a great lonely house on a far lonely roadway lived in seclusion among her waxen flowers and cracking walls and faded relics of a far yesterday, a hateful and withered and bitter old woman. To the lonely house on the lonely roadway came one day out of the world to live with the old woman her young and beautiful and very lovely granddaughter. And one day—it was not so long afterward—the very lovely girl, rummaging about the great house, came upon a tall mirror, the mirror that the withered and bitter old woman had long been wont to use and that for all these many lonely years had seen and reflected naught but acrimony and decay and despair and ugliness. And the very lovely girl looked into the mirror—and suddenly cried out. For what the mirror reflected was not her very lovely self, but something hateful and withered and bitter....

XLVII

PATRIA

The young man lay dying on the field of battle. "Tell them I am proud to have died for my glorious country!" he breathed to the comrade who bent beside him.

They printed the young man's noble last words in all the leading papers of the country, conspicuously, where all the nation might see and read and therefrom take pride and inspiration, right next to the cartoons of the Katzenjammer Kids.

XLVIII

THE LOVER

"Three brilliant men are my suitors," said the beautiful young woman. "And I would marry the one who loves me most. Tell me how I may know that one."

"Pick the one who, when he is with you, is the most stupid," replied her old nurse.

XLIX

THE PUBLIC

The hurdy-gurdy man's monkey, cap in hand, clambered to the sill of the mediocre artist's window. And the mediocre artist tossed into his cap a peanut. The monkey, putting the peanut in his mouth, swallowed it, and grinned.

The hurdy-gurdy man's monkey, cap in hand, clambered to the neighbouring sill of the great artist's window. And the great artist tossed into his cap a sou. The monkey, putting the sou in his mouth, swallowed it, and grinned. But presently a great discomfort instituted itself in the monkey's abdomen. Whereupon the monkey immediately concluded that the sou was a counterfeit.

L

THE SCHOLAR

The scholar laid in solemn reverence a wreath upon the tomb of Beethoven.

"I place this wreath not upon the tomb of Beethoven," he exclaimed, "but upon the grave of music."

But no one heard what he said, because the robins were singing too loudly.

LI

GROTESQUERIE

The small boy's ambition was to grow up and be an iceman.

The small boy grew up and became a famous vaudeville clog dancer.

The great man now often thinks back and smiles to himself at the grotesque absurdity of a small boy's idea of a career.

LII

CONTRETEMPS

An artist, wandering along the highway of a city, with his eyes on the stars, tripped over something, fell and was crippled.

It was a purse of gold.

LIII

DRAMATIC CRITICISM

Two gentlemen of the assizes met one evening upon the highway with a dog. The dog, a friendly creature, barked amiably at the gentlemen, whereupon the twain smiled and bent to pat the dog. Stooping thus, one of the