Boswell broke in upon me with: "Well, how do you like it?"

"It's great," I said. "May I keep it?"

"You may if you can," he laughed. "But I fancy it can't withstand the
rigors of this climate any more than an unfireproof copy of one of your
books could stand the caniculars of ours."

His words were soon to be verified, for as soon as he left me the book
vanished, but whether it went off into thin air or was repocketed by the
departing Boswell I am not entirely certain.

"What was it you asked me about Samson and Goliath?" Boswell observed,
as he gathered up his manuscript from the floor beside the Enchanted
Typewriter. "Whether they'd ever been in Honolulu?"

"No," I replied. "I got a letter from Hawaii the other day asking for
the result of the prize-fight the day Kidd ran off with the house-boat."

"Oh," replied Boswell. "That? Why, ah, Samson won hands down, but only
because they played according to latter-day rules. If it had been a
regular knock-out fight, like the contests in the old days of the ring
when it was in its prime, Goliath could have managed him with one hand;
but the Samson backers played a sharp game on the Philistine by having
the most recently amended Queensbury rules adopted, and Goliath wasn't
in it five minutes after Samson opened his mouth."

"I don't think I understand," said I.

"Plain enough," explained Boswell. "Goliath didn't know what the modern
rules were, but he thought a fight was a fight under any rules, so, like
a decent chap, he agreed, and when he found that it was nothing but a
talking-match he'd got into he fainted. He never was good at expressing
himself fluently. Samson talked him down in two rounds, just as he did
the other Philistines in the early days on earth."

I laughed. "You're slightly off there," I said. "That was a
stand-up-and-be-knocked-down fight, wasn't it? He used the jawbone of an
ass?"

"Very true," observed Boswell, "but it is evident that it is you who are
slightly off. You haven't kept up with the higher criticism. It has been
proven scientifically that not only did the whale not swallow Jonah, but
that Samson's great feat against the Philistines was comparable only to
the achievements of your modern senators. He talked them to death."

"Then why jawbone of an ass?" I cried.

"Samson was an ass," replied Boswell. "They prove that by the temple
episode, for you see if he hadn't been one he'd have got out of the
building before yanking the found