_ the following copy of a cable
dispatch just forwarded to the Allied Powers of Europe:

SLIPPERYELMHURST, HUDSON, WIS.--_To the Allied Powers, care of Lord
Salisbury._ Gentlemen: Your favor of recent date regarding my acceptance
of the Bulgarian throne, which is now vacant and for rent, in which note
you tender me the use of said throne for one year, with the privilege of
three, is at hand. You also state that the Allied Powers are not
favorable to Prince Nicholas and that you would prefer a dark horse.
Looking over the entire list of obscure men, it would seem you have
been unable to fix upon a man who has made a better showing in this line
than I have.

While I thank you for this kind offer of a throne that has, as you
state, been newly refitted and refurnished throughout, I must decline it
for reasons which I will try to give in my own rough, unpolished way.

In the first place I read in the dispatches to-day that Russia is
mobilizing her troops, and I do not want anything to do with a country
that will treat its soldiers in that way. Troops have certain rights as
well as those who have sought the pleasanter walks of peace.

That is not all. I do not care to enter into a squabble in which I am
not interested. Neither do I care to go to Bulgaria in the capacity of a
carpet-bag monarch from the ten-cent counter, wearing a boiler-iron
overcoat by day and a stab-proof corset at night. I have always been in
favor of Bulgaria's selection of a monarch _viva voce_ or _vox populi_,
whichever you think would look the best in print.

I hate to see a monarch in hot water all the time and threatening to
abdicate. Supposing he does abdicate, what good will that do, when he
leaves a widow with nothing but a second-hand throne and a crown two
sizes too small for his successor? I have always said, and I still say,
that nothing can be more pitiful than the sight of a lovely queen whose
husband, in a wild frenzy of remorse, has abdicated himself.

Nothing, I repeat, can be sadder than this picture of a deserted queen,
left high and dry, without means, forced at last to go to the
pawnbrokers with a little plated, fluted crown with rabbit-skin ear-tabs
on it!

We are prone to believe that a monarch has nothing to do but issue a
ukase or a mandamus and that he will then have all the funds he wants;
but such is not the case. Lots of our most successful monarchs are
liable to be overtaken any year by a long, cold winter and found as