great, untried purgatory of public scrutiny, and the general
indictment followed.

The truth stands out brighter and stronger than ever that there is no
cut across lots to fame or success. He who seeks to jump from mediocrity
to a glittering triumph over the heads of the patient student, and the
earnest, industrious candidate who is willing to bide his time, gets
what James Owen O'Connor received--the just condemnation of those who
are abundantly able to judge.

In seeking to combine the melancholy beauty of Hamlet's deep and earnest
pathos with the gentle humor of "A Hole in the Ground," Mr. O'Connor
evidently corked himself, as we say at the Browning Club, and it was but
justice after all. Before we curse the condemnation of the people and
the press, let us carefully and prayerfully look ourselves over, and see
if we have not overestimated ourselves.

There are many men alive to-day who do not dare say anything without
first thinking how it will read in their memoirs--men whom we can not,
therefore, thoroughly enjoy until they are dead, and yet whose graves
will be kept green only so long as the appropriation lasts.

MY MATRIMONIAL BUREAU

X

The following matrimonial inquiries are now in my hands awaiting
replies, and I take this method of giving them more air. A few months
ago I injudiciously stated that I should take great pleasure in booming,
or otherwise whooping up, everything in the matrimonial line, if those
who needed aid would send me twenty-five cents, with personal
description, lock of hair, and general outline of the style of husband
or wife they were yearning for. As a result of thus yielding to a blind
impulse and giving it currency through the daily press, I now have a
huge mass of more or less soiled postage stamps that look as though they
had made a bicycle tour around the world, a haymow full of letters
breathing love till you can't rest, and a barrel of calico-colored hair.
It is a rare treat to look at this assortment of hair of every hue and
degree of curl and coarseness. When I pour it out on the floor it looks
like the interior of a western barber shop during a state fair. When I
want fun again I shall not undertake to obtain it by starting a
matrimonial agency.

I have one letter from a man of twenty-seven summers, who pants to
bestow himself on some one at as early a date as possible. He tells me
on a separate slip of paper, which he wishes destroyed, that he is a
little giv