, rapt, after each few works. As line followed line the
room became quiet save for the click of the machine, the planters
eyeing each other, waiting impatiently for disclosure of the new
deviltry his whole attitude betokened. Pausing after each few lines to
seek inspiration at the roots of his thick tumbled hair, he wrote for
about fifteen minutes.

Then, tearing out the sheet, he mounted the chair and with a face
owlish in its affectation of heavy wisdom, he thrust his hand in his
blouse in classic barnstorming attitude and read his creation.

"CASEY"

The palm-fringed gulf of fair Davao--
The garden-spot of Mindanao--
Has been the Theater where Surprise
Has pried apart our mouth and eyes.
But bounteous Nature, in her last,
Has all her former deeds surpassed!

What now are Burbank's grafting deeds
Marconi's stunts, whose genius speeds
A message on a wireless tack
And makes of space a jumping-jack?
Where now does Edison hold sway?
Or radium's finder, Pierre Curie?

Does not this deed alone suffice
To render all that men or mice
Have wrought since days of Tubal Cain
Infinitesimal, and vain?

No man before has seen a dam
Provide the rudiments for a ham.
And not content with razor-backs
Produce a quota for the tracks.

It seems like thistles yielding figs--
A blooded mare with sixteen pigs!
And Truth receives a serious jolt
To find the seventeenth a colt!
Can anything on earth compare
With this performance of a mare?

But hold! For while I eulogize,
There is another claims a prize
And puts to shame all gone before;
I mean this humble Yankee boar!
What lowly hog did yet aspire
To ribboned fame as race-track sire?

Consult the annals of all time,
Great deeds extolled in prose and rhyme,
Delve deep in Clio's treasured store,
Exhaust encyclopedic lore--
You will not find in one edition
A hint of such high pig-ambition!

Had he but lived in days gone by
When Richard raised his voice on high
And offered Kingdom for a Horse,
To him he might have had recourse....
Imagine bristly Berkshire swine
Upon the throne of Coeur de Lion!!

But, while we give our meed of praise
To those who would these isles upraise,
Forget not him who planned all that--
For it was Casey at the bat!

Forget not him whose Celtic h