Sextus and his foemen yelled--because there was no bridge to hold.
With Fact King Skeptic pounds your head, and prods you with it to the
hilt, and shows Horatius had been dead ten years before the bridge was
built. "He fell not in the Tiber's foam, performed no feats of arms
sublime. I know! The city clerk of Rome sent me the records of that
time!"

Mazeppa's ride was all a joke, as all the statisticians know; the horse
he rode was city broke, and stopped whene'er he whispered "whoa." Most
luckily, the village vet wrote down the facts with rugged power;
Mazeppa simply made a bet the horse could go three miles an hour; he
wasn't strapped upon its back, no perils dire did him befall; he rode
around a kite-shaped track, and lost his bet, and that was all.

And so it goes; you can't relate a legend of heroic acts but that the
Skeptic then will state objections based on Deadly Facts. Romance is
but a total loss, and all the joy of life departs; we've nothing left
but Charlie Ross, and he'll turn up, to break our hearts.

GATHERING ROSES

I've gathered roses and the like, in many glad and golden Junes; but
now, as down the world I hike, my weary hands are filled with prunes.
I've gathered roses o'er and o'er, and some were white, and some were
red; but when I took them to the store, the grocer wanted eggs instead.
I gathered roses long ago, in other days, in other scenes; and people
said: "You ought to go, and dig the weeds out of your beans." A
million roses bloomed and died, a million more will die today; that man
is wise who lets them slide, and gathers up the bales of hay.

THE FUTURE SPORT

The airship is a thing achieved; it has its rightful place, as well as
any autocart that ever ran a race. The farmer, in the coming years,
when eggs to town he brings, will flop along above the trees, upon his
rusty wings. The doctor, when he has a call, from patients far or
near, will quickly strap his pinions on, and hit the atmosphere. And
airship racing then will be the sport to please the crowds; there'll be
racecourses overhead, and grandstands in the clouds. The umpire, on
his patent wings, will hover here and there; the fans, with rented
parachutes, will prance along the air; the joyous shrieks of flying
sports will keep the welkin hot, and soaring cops will blithely chase
the scorching aeronaut. We'll soon be living overhead, our families
and all; and then we'll only need the earth to land on when