mp speeches even in praying) looked around
And said to Bob's incinerated shade:
"Your Excellency, this is mighty hard on
The inventors of the unpardonable pardon."

The other soul--his right hand all aflame,
For 'twas with that he'd chiefly sinned, although
His tongue, too, like a wick was working woe
To the reserve of tallow in his frame--
Said, with a sputtering, uncertain flow,
And with a gesture like a shaken torch:
"Yes, but I'm sure we'll not much longer scorch.
Although this climate is not good for Hope,
Whose joyous wing 'twould singe, I think the porch
Of Hell we'll quit with a pacific slope.
Last century I signified repentance
And asked for commutation of our sentence."

Even as he spoke, the form of Satan loomed
In sight, all crimson with reflections's fire,
Like some tall tower or cathedral spire
Touched by the dawn while all the earth is gloomed
In mists and shadows of the night time. "Sire,"
Said Waterman, his agitable wick
Still sputtering, "what calls you back so quick?
It scarcely was a century ago
You left us." "I have come to bring," said Nick,
"St. Peter's answer (he is never slow
In correspondence) to your application
For pardon--pardon me!--for commutation.

"He says that he's instructed to reply
(And he has so instructed me) that sin
Like yours--and this poor gentleman's who's in
For bad advice to you--comes rather high;
But since, apparently, you both begin
To feel some pious promptings to the right,
And fain would turn your faces to the light,
Eternity seems all too long a term.
So 'tis commuted to one-half. I'm quite
Prepared, when that expires, to free the worm
And quench the fire." And, civilly retreating,
He left them holding their protracted meeting.

A LIFTED FINGER

[The _Chronicle_ did a great public service in whipping
---- and his fellow-rascals out of office.--_M.H. de Young's
Newspaper_.]

What! _you_ whip rascals?--_you_, whose gutter blood
Bears, in its dark, dishonorable flood,
Enough of prison-birds' prolific germs
To serve a whole eternity of terms?
_You_, for whose back the rods and cudgels strove
Ere yet the ax had hewn them from the grove?
_You_, the De Young whose splendor bright and brave
Is phosphorescence from another's grave--
Till now unknown, by any chance or luck,
Even to the hearts at which you, feebly struck?
_You_ whip a rascal out of office?--_you_
Whose leadless weapon once ignobly blew