but as phizz
Unto pop that knows it is.

Haply, even as we prate
Of him HERE--in astral state--
Or jackastral--he, elate,

Brouses 'round, with sportive hops
In far fields of sphery crops,
Nibbling stars like clover-tops.

He, occult and psychic, may
Now be solving why to-day
Is not midnight.--But away!

Cease vain queries! Let us go!
Leave him all unfathomed.--Lo,
He can hear his whiskers grow.

The Diary of Darius T. Skinner

[Illustration]

"FIFTH AVENUE HOTEL, New York, Dec. 31, 188-.--It hardly seems possible
that I am here in New York, putting up at a hotel where it costs me $5
or $6 a day just simply to exist. I came here from my far away-home
entirely alone. I have no business here, but I simply desired to rub up
against greatness for awhile. I need polish, and I am smart enough to
know it.

"I write this entry in my diary to explain who I am and to help identify
myself in case I should come home to my room intoxicated some night and
blow out the gas.

"The reason I am here is that last summer while whacking bulls, which is
really my business, I grub-staked Alonzo McReddy and forgot about it
till I got back and the boys told me that Lon had struck a First
National bank in the shape of the Sarah Waters claim. He was then very
low with mountain fever and so nobody felt like jumping the claim.
Saturday afternoon Alonzo passed away and left me the Sarah Waters.
That's the only sad thing about the whole business now. I am raised from
bull-whacking to affluence, but Alonzo is not here. How we would take in
the town together if he'd lived, for the Sarah Waters was enough to make
us both well fixed.

"I can imagine Lon's look of surprise and pride as he looks over the
outer battlements of the New Jerusalem and watches me paint the town.
Little did Lon think when I pulled out across the flat with my whiskers
full of alkali dust and my cuticle full of raw agency whisky, that
inside of a year I would be a nabob, wearing biled shirts every single
day of my life, and clothes made specially for me.

"Life is full of sudden turns, and no one knows here in America where
he'll be in two weeks from now. I may be back there associating with
greasers again as of yore and skinning the same bulls that I have
heretofore skun.

"Last evening I went to see 'The Mikado,' a kind of singing theater and
Chinese walk-around. It is what I would call