Part 15 (2/2)

[Received by a construction company.]

Dear Sir I an writhing you and wanted to know that can I get a book from your company which will teach me of oprating steam and steam ingean. I was fireing at a plant not long ago and found one of your catalogs and it give me meny good idol about steam. I have been opiratin stean for the last 12 years for I know that there are lots more to learn about steam and I want to learn it so I will close for this time expecting to here from you soon.

”Since Frank Harris has been mentioned,” communicates C. E. L., ”it would be interesting to a lot of folks to know just what standing he has in literature.” Oh, not much. Aside from being one of the best editors the Sat.u.r.day Review ever had, one of the best writers of short stories in English or any other language, and one of the most acute critics in the profession, his standing is negligible.

Our young friend who is about to become a colyumist should certainly include in his first string the restaurant wheeze: ”Don't laugh at our coffee. You may be old and weak yourself some day.”

”One sinister eye--the right one--gleamed at him over the pistol.”--Baltimore Sun.

No wonder foreigners have a hard time with the American language.

BALLADE OF THE OUBLIETTE.

_And deeper still the deep-down oubliette, Down thirty feet below the smiling day._ --_Tennyson._

_Sudden in the sun An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone._ --_Mrs. Browning._

Gaoler of the donjon deep-- Black from pit to parapet-- In whose depths forever sleep Famous bores whose sun has set, Daily ope the portal; let In the bores who daily bore.

Thrust--sans sorrow or regret-- Thrust them through the Little Door.

Warder of Oblivion's keep-- Dismal dank, and black as jet-- Through the fatal wicket sweep All the pests we all have met.

Prithee, overlook no bet; Grab them--singly, by the score-- And, lest they be with us yet, Thrust them through the Little Door.

Lead them to the awful leap With a merry chansonette; Push them blithely off the steep; We'll forgive them and forget.

Toss them, like a cigarette, To the far Plutonian floor.

Drop them where they'll cease to fret-- Thrust them through the Little Door.

Keeper of the Oubliette, Wouldst thou have us more and more In thine everlasting debt-- Thrust them through the Little Door.

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