an airship, Thomas Tinkle," I answered him; "a modern wrinkle,
just one of many score which were by scientists invented to make the
people more contented since you began to snore."

I told him of the wireless system and other wonders--he had missed 'em,
since he was sound asleep; of submarines which sink and travel serenely
o'er the mud and gravel beneath the raging deep.

"You can't convince me," said the waker, "that 'tis the earth--you are
a faker, and deal in fairy tales; no man could soar away up yonder,
like some blamed albatross or condor on metal wings or sails. And as
for sending long dispatches from Buffalo clear down to Natchez, the
same not being wired, if that's done here it's not the planet whereon I
lived when mortals ran it; your stories make me tired. But what are
these rip-snorting wagons? We must be in the land of dragons! I never
saw the like! So riotously are they scooting, so wildly are they
callyhooting they fairly burn the pike!"

I told him they were merely autos whose drivers lived up to their
mottoes that speed laws are in vain; and other miracles amazing with
delicate and pointed phrasing I started to explain. I told of triumphs
most astounding, of things which should be quite confounding to
resurrected men; but in the middle of my soaring I heard old Thomas
Tinkle snoring--he'd gone to sleep again.

IN HORSELAND

A well-fed horse drove into town, behind a span of ancient men, whose
knees were sore from falling down and striving to get up again; their
poor old ribs were bare of meat, and they had sores upon their necks;
there wasn't, on the village street, a tougher looking pair of wrecks.
And so they shambled up the street, a spectre harnessed with a ghost;
the horse descended from his seat, and left them standing by a post.
And there they stood through half the night, and shook and shivered in
the tugs, the while their master, in delight, was shaking dice with
other plugs. And there they died, of grief and cold--no more they'll
haul the heavy plow; their master said, when he was told: "They cost
blamed little, anyhow!"

INAUGURATION DAY, 1913

Now Washington is swarming with men of sterling worth, all bent upon
reforming the heaven and the earth; they come from far Savannah, they
come from Texarkana, and points in Indiana, with loud yet seemly mirth.
They're come from far Alaska, where show is heaped on snow; they've
journeyed from Nebraska where commoners do gro