u,
for I had hardly gotten my eyes free from what my poetic son calls "the
seeds of sleep" when I heard the type-writer tap forth:

"Hello, old man!"

Incidentally let me say that this had become another interesting feature
of the machine. Since my first interview with Boswell the taps seemed
to speak, and if some one were sitting before it and writing a line the
mere differentiation of sounds of the various keys would convey to the
mind the ideas conveyed to it by the printed words. So, as I say, my
ears were greeted with a clicking "Hello, old man!" followed immediately
by the bell.

"You are late," said I, looking at my watch.

"I know it," was the response. "But I can't help it. During the campaign
I am kept so infernally busy I hardly know where I am."

"Campaign, eh?" I put in. "Do you have campaigns in Hades?"

"Yes," replied Boswell, "and we are having a--well, to be polite, a
regular Gehenna of a time. Things have changed much in Hades latterly.
There has been a great growth in the democratic spirit below, and his
Majesty is having a deuce of a time running his kingdom. Washington and
Cromwell and Caesar have had the nerve to demand a constitution from the
venerable Nicholas--"

"From whom?" I queried, perplexed somewhat, for I was not yet fully
awake.

"Old Nick," replied Boswell; "and I can tell you there's a pretty fight
on between the supporters of the administration and the opposition.
Secure in his power, the Grand Master of Hades has been somewhat
arbitrary, and he has made the mistake of doing some of his subjects
a little too brown. Take the case of Bonaparte, for instance: the
government has ruled that he was personally responsible for all the wars
of Europe from 1800 up to Waterloo, and it was proposed to hang him once
for every man killed on either side throughout that period. Bonaparte
naturally resisted. He said he had a good neck, which he did not object
to have broken three or four times, because he admitted he deserved it;
but when it came to hanging him five or six million times, once a month,
for, say, five million months, or twelve times a year for 415,000 years,
he didn't like it, and wouldn't stand it, and wanted to submit the
question to arbitration.

"Nicholas observed that the word arbitration was not in his especially
expurgated dictionary, whereupon Bonaparte remarked that he wasn't
responsible for that; that he thought it a good word and worthy of
incorporation in any dic