a royalty.

I say this as one friend to another and not because I have to wear
copper-fastened pajamas.

I don't mind the copper-fastened pajamas so much, but to wear asphalt
neckties and barb-wire suspenders is something which aggravates the
spirit.

At 8 A.M. this morning M. Cornmealski, the Minister of the Department of
Armored Breakfasts, reported that he had discovered something suspicious
in the dish of peeled prunes.

We examined the prunes carefully and found them stuffed with free
tickets to ride on the Brooklyn Elevated Railroad. We burned the tickets
hastily and saved our lives again.

M. Cornmealski reports that up to date 219 different breakfast foods
have been received at the palace kitchen. He says they range all the way
from consolidated shavings to perforated sawdust, with here and there
some compressed knot-holes.

In a mad moment yesterday I took the Yale lock off my appetite and
ordered up one of those breakfast food samples, but just as I had the
spoonful at my lips I remembered the prayer of my youth: "Woodman, spare
that tree!" and once more my life was saved.

Ten minutes ago M. Blackandblueski, the Minister of the Department of
Witch Hazel, rushed into my bulkhead compartment.

"Oxcooski, Your Majesty," said the Minister, "but this morning the
cookski was burning a few links of sausage for breakfast. Well, Your
Majesty, about two minutes afterwards the cookski and the stove and one
side of the palace left in a hurry and went away in a northwesterly
direction. We don't expect them back, because the sausage was stuffed
with rapid transit material, Your Majesty!"

Thus it goes all day. Don't you think it is pretty hard lines when I
have to make them wash the water on both sides before putting it in the
teapot?

Now I must stop because I hear the humming of the harpoons on the
outside. My officers are talking about me again. Farewellski!

* * * * *

CUSTOMS INSPECTOR. An individual who gets a salary for believing that
everybody on the steamboat is a smuggler.

* * * * *

In order to study briefly the Custom House system as applied to
returning travellers let us witness the arrival from abroad of the
Secretary of the Treasury.

Some years before the Secretary went into politics deep enough to stay
there and make expenses he took a slight trip to Europe.

Two weeks later he was on his way home to his beloved land on th