forgot the
matron's pies. And then the cowherd's wife came in; she smelled the
smoke, she gave a shout; she biffed him with the rolling pin, and
cried: "Ods fish, you useless lout! You are not worth the dynamite
'twould take to blow you off the map! Your head is not upholstered
right--you are a worthless trifling chap!"

When on his throne King Alfred sat, that woman had an inward ache; she
chewed the feathers from her hat because she'd made so bad a break.

It isn't safe, my friends, to say that any man's a failure flat because
he cannot shovel hay, or climb a tree, or skin a cat. The man who's
awkward with a saw, who cannot hammer in a nail, may in the future
practice law and fill his bins with shining kale. The ne'er-do-well
who cannot cook the luscious egg his hen has laid, may yet sit down and
write a book that makes the big best sellers fade. The man who blacks
your boots today, and envies you your rich cigar, next year may have
the right of way while touring in his private car.

It isn't safe at men to jeer however awkwardly they tread; they yet may
find their proper sphere--no man's a failure till he's dead.

LIFE'S INJUSTICE

The learned man labors in his lair, and trains his telescope across a
million leagues of air, among the stars to grope. He would increase
the little store of knowledge we possess, and so he toils forever more,
and often in distress. His whiskers and his hair are long, and in the
zephyrs wave, because--alas! such things are wrong--he can't afford a
shave. His trousers bag about the knees, his ancient coat's a botch;
his shoes allow his feet to freeze, he bears a dollar watch. And when
the grocer's store he seeks to buy a can of hash, in frigid tones the
merchant speaks: "I'll have to have the cash!" And when he's dead a
hundred years the people will arise, and praise the man who found new
spheres cavorting through the skies. The children in the public
schools will learn to bless his name, and guide their studies by his
rules, and glory in his fame. And in the graveyard, where he went
unhonored by the town, a big fat marble monument will hold the wise man
down.

The low-brow spars a dozen rounds, before an audience, and he is loaded
down with pounds, and shillings, crowns and pence. Where'er he goes
the brawny Goth is lionized by all, like Caesar, when he cut a swath
along the Lupercal. Promoters grovel at his feet, and offer heaps of
scads, if he will condescend