to run a newspaper. There was a poem in connection with
them, which mystified LINCOLN B. SWEZEY not a little; he "allowed it
was darned personal," but further than that his light did not
penetrate. He went to a little Club, of which he was a temporary
member; it was not fashionable, and did not seem to want to be, and
SWEZEY thought it flippant. There he asked, "What _are_ the Souls,
anyhow?" "_Societas omnium animarum_," somebody answered, and SWEZEY
exclaimed "Say!" "They are a congregation of ladies. Their statutes
decree that they are to be _bene natae, bene vestitae_, and
_mediocriter_,--I don't remember what."

SWEZEY perceived that he was being trifled with, and turned the
conversation to the superior culture and scholarship of American
politicians, with some thoughts on canvas-backed ducks.

He next applied to a lady, whom he regarded as at once fashionable and
well-informed, and asked her, "Who the Souls were, anyhow?"

"Oh, a horrid, stuck-up set of people," said this Pythoness. "They
have passwords, and wear a silver gridiron."

"Why on earth do they do that?" asked SWEZEY.

"No doubt for some improper, or blasphemous reason. Don't be a
Soul--you had better be a Skate. I am a Skate. We wear a silver skate,
don't you see" (and she showed him a model of an Acme Skate in
silver), "with the motto, _Celer et Audax_--'Fast and Forward.'"

SWEZEY expressed his pride at being admitted to these mysteries--but
still pursued his inquiries.

"What do the Souls _do_?"

"All sorts of horrid things. They have a rule that no Soul is ever to
speak to anybody who is not a Soul, in society, you know. And they
have a rule that no Soul is ever to marry a Soul."

"Exogamy!" said SWEZEY, and began to puzzle out the probable results
and causes of this curious prohibition.

"I don't know what you mean," said the lady, "and I don't know why you
are so curious about them. They all read the same books at the same
time, and they sacrifice wild asses at the altar of the Hyperborean
Apollo, IBSEN, you know."

These particulars were calculated to excite SWEZEY in the highest
degree. He wrote a letter on the subject to the _Chanticleer_, a
newspaper in Troy, Ill., of which he was a correspondent, and it was
copied, with zinco-type illustrations, into all the journals of the
habitable globe, and came back to England like the fabled boomerang.
Meanwhile SWEZEY was cruising about, in town and country, looking
out for persons wear