an the richer by
a ton of adulation, in a red-hot fervor flung; and the poet, in a
pickle, mused upon the false and fickle plaudits of the heartless
rabble, till the dinner gong was rung!

THE VIRTUOUS EDITOR

I use my Trenchant, fertile pen to help along the cause of men and make
the sad world brighter, to give all good ambitions wings, to help the
poor to better things and make their burdens lighter. The page whereon
my screeds appear envoys a sacred atmosphere; it's helpful and
uplifting; it hands out morals by the ton, and shows the people how to
shun the rocks to which they're drifting.

You say my other pages reek with filthy "cures for cancer"?
Impertinently, sir, you speak, and I refuse to answer.

All causes good and true and pure, and everything that should endure
I'm always found supporting; and in my lighter moments I to heights of
inspiration fly, the soft-eyed muses courting. To those who wander far
astray I, like a shepherd, point the way to paths and fields Elysian;
no sordid motives soil my pen as I assist my fellow men, no meanness
mars my vision.

You say I print too many ads, unfit for youths' perusal, of fakers'
pills and liver pads? I gave you one refusal to argue that, so quit
your fuss and cease your foolish chatter; it is beneath me to discuss a
purely business matter.

I point out all the shabby tricks which now disgrace our politics,
those tricks which shame the devil; I ask the voters to deface
corruption and our country place upon a higher level. Through endless
wastes of words I roam to make the Fireside and the Home the nation's
shrine and glory; and Purity must ring again in every offspring of my
pen, in every screed and story.

You say my paper isn't fit for aught but toughs and muckers? That all
the fakers come to it when they would fleece the suckers? Your
criticism takes the buns! It's surely most surprising! You'll have to
see the man who runs the foreign advertising.

THIS DISMAL AGE

"It is a humdrum world," he said, "in which we now abide! alas! the
good old times are dead when brave knights used to ride to war upon
their armored steeds; then bloodshed was in style; then men could do
heroic deeds, and life was worth the while. If I should go with lance
and sword to enemy of mine--to one by whom I've long been bored, and
cleave him to the chine, there'd be no plaudits long and loud, no
wreaths from ladies pale; the cops would seek me in a crowd, and