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 Saturday 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.

* * *

To insure the safety of the traveling public, the Maroon Taxicab Company
is putting out a line of armored cabs. These will also be equipped with
automatic brakes, so that when a driver for a rival taxicab company
shoots