nger
impending.

"But to be brief in my tale. Again, ere we came to the level,
Slipped from its axle a wheel; so that, to be plain in my statement,
A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance may be,
We traveled upon ONE wheel, until we drove up to the station.

"Then, sir, we sank in a heap; but, picking myself from the ruins,
I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the distance
The three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon whirling,
Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of the
station.

"This is my story, sir; a trifle, indeed, I assure you.
Much more, perchance, might be said--but I hold him of all men most
lightly
Who swerves from the truth in his tale. No, thank you-- Well, since
you ARE pressing,
Perhaps I don't care if I do: you may give me the same, Jim,--no
sugar."

A QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE

REPORTED BY TRUTHFUL JAMES

It was Andrew Jackson Sutter who, despising Mr. Cutter for remarks
he heard him utter in debate upon the floor,
Swung him up into the skylight, in the peaceful, pensive twilight,
and then keerlessly proceeded, makin' no account what WE did--
To wipe up with his person casual dust upon the floor.

Now a square fight never frets me, nor unpleasantness upsets me, but
the simple thing that gets me--now the job is done and gone,
And we've come home free and merry from the peaceful cemetery,
leavin' Cutter there with Sutter--that mebbee just a stutter
On the part of Mr. Cutter caused the loss we deeply mourn.

Some bashful hesitation, just like spellin' punctooation--might have
worked an aggravation on to Sutter's mournful mind,
For the witnesses all vary ez to wot was said and nary a galoot will
toot his horn except the way he is inclined.

But they all allow that Sutter had begun a kind of mutter, when
uprose Mr. Cutter with a sickening kind of ease,
And proceeded then to wade in to the subject then prevadin': "Is
Profanity degradin'?" in words like unto these:

"Onlike the previous speaker, Mr. Sutter of Yreka, he was but a
humble seeker--and not like him--a cuss"--
It was here that Mr. Sutter softly reached for Mr. Cutter, when the
latter with a stutter said: "ac-customed to dis