made a search of the room and then gone back to bed to
think up some new words, that is the time when I usually bring the
climax about.

"Gradually approaching him from the right, I hum loudly at his ear.
Then, suddenly becoming quiet, I fly silently and quickly around to his
neck. Just as he hits himself on the ear, I bite his neck and fly away.
And, _voila_, there you are!"

"How true that is!" said Mother Nature. "_Voila_, there we are!... Come,
children, let us go now, for we must be up bright and early to-morrow to
learn how Lois Hen scratches up the beets and Swiss chard in the
gentlemen's gardens."

XXXV

THE TARIFF UNMASKED

Let us get this tariff thing cleared up, once and for all. An
explanation is due the American people, and obviously this is the place
to make it.

Viewing the whole thing, schedule by schedule, we find it indefensible.
In Schedule A alone the list of necessities on which the tax is to be
raised includes Persian berries, extract of nutgalls and isinglass. Take
isinglass alone. With prices shooting up in this market, what is to
become of our picture post-cards? Where once for a nickel you could get
a picture of the Woolworth Building ablaze with lights with the sun
setting and the moon rising in the background, under the proposed tariff
it will easily set you back fifteen cents. This is all very well for the
rich who can get their picture post-cards at wholesale, but how are the
poor to get their art?

The only justifiable increase in this schedule is on "blues,
in pulp, dried, etc." If this will serve to reduce the amount
of "Those Lonesome-Onesome-Wonesome Blues" and "I've Got the
Left-All-Alone-in-The-Magazine-Reading-Room-of-the-Public-Library Blues"
with which our popular song market has been flooded for the past five
years, we could almost bring ourselves to vote for the entire tariff
bill as it stands.

_Schedule B_

Here we find a tremendous increase in the tax on grindstones.
Householders and travelers in general do not appreciate what this means.
It means that, next year, when you are returning from Europe, you will
have to pay a duty on those Dutch grindstones that you always bring back
to the cousins, a duty which will make the importation of more than
three prohibitive. This will lead to an orgy of grindstone smuggling,
making it necessary for hitherto respectable people to become
law-breakers by concealing grindstones about their clothing and in the
trays o