poor man forget his troubles and filled him instead
with delightful visions of sunny lands and blue skies and red poppies
and fair women and languorous luxury.

And the poor man, now unhappier than before, had to expend his last
three sous for spirits of ammonia wherewith to recapture the nepenthe of
his first troubles.

LV

ECCE HOMO

A homely woman smiled at a man. And the man, puzzled and speculating
what was wrong with him, slouched on.

A pretty woman smiled at a man. And the man, with the mien of a cock,
threw out his chest and strutted on.

LVI

THE ACTOR

A poet, poor and neglected, lived up under the dusty eaves, with for
sole companion a parrot. One day, the poet evolved a particularly lovely
line and, in his happiness, repeated it to himself aloud, and time upon
time.

A week later, some portly persons, passing beneath the lofty window,
espied the parrot perched upon the sill and heard it speak the poet's
line. Breathless with amazement, they stopped and cried out: "What a
_wonderful_ bird!"

LVII

VADE MECUM

An infatuated young man sought counsel at the bazaar of an ancient and
prayed the ancient tell him how he might learn of his fair lady's
faults.

"Go forth among her women friends," spake the venerable one, "and praise
her in their hearing."

LVIII

BUTTERFLIES

A man beheld a butterfly and, catching her, held her in his hands and
feasted his eyes upon her prettiness. But as he held her so, the pollen
rubbed off her wings and she fluttered, a pitiable thing, weakly from
his grasp.

A man beheld a butterfly and, catching her, held her in his arms and
feasted his eyes upon her prettiness. But as he held her so, the powder
rubbed off her nose and....

LIX

BOOMERANG

There was a critic--a sincere and art-loving man--who flouted the mob's
taste, who inveighed against the popular, who protested vigorously
against the low, mean art form that in dramatic shape packed nightly the
playhouses of the great city with the unesthetic, artistically depraved
and vulgar bourgeoisie. That things should come to so unholy a pass, he
sighed.

The critic never stopped to consider that the journal which he graced
had in the great city a daily circulation of half a million.

LX

ADVICE

"Beware," warned the Mind, solemnly.

The Heart, whistling a gay tune, cocked its hat upon one ear, gave a
twist to its cravat, and kicked the old savant d