er my first day in the saddle. When I worked for that mean old
farmer, years before, I thought I was physically broken up if not entirely
bankrupt, but that experience pales into significance as compared with the
present case. Then we got out on an alkali desert, forty miles from water,
and I nearly choked, to death. However, I survived it all and in due time
got back to civilization.

On my arrival home my den looked more cozy and inviting than it ever had
before. My old friends gave me a hearty greeting and their smiles and
handshakes seemed good to me on dropping back to earth after a brief
sojourn in the Land of Nowhere. I was truly glad for once that I was
alive, for I believe there is no keener pleasure than, after an absence,
to have the privilege of mingling with old, time-tried friends that you
know are sincere and true. My friends seemed just as glad to see me as I
did them. We laughed as heartily at each other's jokes as if they had been
really funny. Old friends are the best, because they learn where our
tenderest corns are and try to walk as lightly as possible over them. I
thought the hardships I had endured for a while were fully compensated for
by once more being surrounded by familiar faces and scenes.

But in a few weeks life again became monotonous. Everybody bored me. It
seemed to me that both men and women talked, as they thought, in a circle
of very small circumference. I found only an occasional person who could
interest me for even a short time; I felt that I must have some mental
excitement of a legitimate kind or I would go crazy. What should it be?

Not having anything better at hand, I turned my attention to society and
the club. I had never given these matters quite the earnest consideration
even for the accustomed length of time which I devoted to so many other
things. I conceived the idea of inaugurating a campaign of education,
socially speaking, for the purpose of getting men and women on a higher
plane of thinking. I tried to get everybody interested in Browning and
Shakespeare, from whom they could get mental pabulum worth while; I would
have everybody look after his diction and not give vent to such
expressions as: "I seen him when he done it." I would get as many people
as I could to think and talk of something above commonplaces. But in a
little while I saw that most people did not want to be bored by such
things as mind cultivation, but were rather bent on what they chose to
think