ur bald places, and ye will never be poor or
unhappy again; and mine is the only true soap. Oh, beware of spurious
imitations!"

"Buy my lotion, all ye that suffer from pains in the head, or the
stomach, or the feet, or that have broken arms, or broken hearts, or
objectionable mothers-in-law; and drink one bottle a day, and all your
troubles will be ended."

"Come to my church, all ye that want to go to Heaven, and buy my penny
weekly guide, and pay my pew-rates; and, pray ye, have nothing to do
with my misguided brother over the road. _This_ is the only safe way!"

"Oh, vote for me, my noble and intelligent electors, and send our party
into power, and the world shall be a new place, and there shall be no
sin or sorrow any more! And each free and independent voter shall have
a bran new Utopia made on purpose for him, according to his own ideas,
with a good-sized, extra-unpleasant purgatory attached, to which he can
send everybody he does not like. Oh! do not miss this chance!"

Oh! listen to my philosophy, it is the best and deepest. Oh! hear my
songs, they are the sweetest. Oh! buy my pictures, they alone are true
art. Oh! read my books, they are the finest.

Oh! _I_ am the greatest cheesemonger, _I_ am the greatest soldier, _I_
am the greatest statesman, _I_ am the greatest poet, _I_ am the greatest
showman, _I_ am the greatest mountebank, _I_ am the greatest editor, and
_I_ am the greatest patriot. _We_ are the greatest nation. _We_ are
the only good people. _Ours_ is the only true religion. Bah! how we all
yell!

How we all brag and bounce, and beat the drum and shout; and nobody
believes a word we utter; and the people ask one another, saying:

"How can we tell who is the greatest and the cleverest among all these
shrieking braggarts?"

And they answer:

"There is none great or clever. The great and clever men are not here;
there is no place for them in this pandemonium of charlatans and quacks.
The men you see here are crowing cocks. We suppose the greatest and the
best of _them_ are they who crow the loudest and the longest; that is
the only test of _their_ merits."

Therefore, what is left for us to do, but to crow? And the best and
greatest of us all, is he who crows the loudest and the longest on this
little dunghill that we call our world!

Well, I was going to tell you about our clock.

It was my wife's idea, getting it, in the first instance. We had been to
dinner at the Buggles', and Buggles