isn't that just the most fearful mess of stuff
that was ever ground out of a lunatic asylum?'

"'It's the awfullest I ever saw.'

"'Well, then, I get eighteen of them a week, and they madden me.
They keep my brain in a frenzied whirl. Grady, this man must die.
Self-preservation is the first law of nature. I have a wife and
children; I conduct a great paper; I educate the public mind. My life
is valuable to my country. Destroy this poet, and future generations
will praise your name. He must be wiped out, exterminated, obliterated
from the face of the earth. Kill him dead and bury him deep, and
fix him in so's he will stay down, and bring in the bill for the
tombstone. I leave the case to you. You need not tell me you have done
this job. When the poems cease to come to me, I will know that he is
dead. That will settle it. Good-morning.'"

It is believed that the poet must have been warned by Grady, for the
supplies suddenly ceased; and Markley is saving up his effusions for
some other victim.

* * * * *

But the major has other persecutors. One of them came into the
editorial-room of the _Patriot_ during one of those very hot days in
June. Major Slott was perspiring in an effort to hammer out an article
on "The Necessity for Speedy Resumption." The visitor seized a chair
and nudged up close to the major. Then he said,

"My name is Partridge. I called to show you a little invention of
mine."

"Haven't got time to look at it. I'm busy."

"I see you are. Won't keep you more'n a minute" (removing his hat).
"Look at that hat and tell me how it strikes you."

"Oh, don't bother me! I'm not interested in hats just now."

"I know you ain't, and that's not a hat. That's Partridge's Patent
Atmospheric Refresher. Looks exactly like a high hat, don't it? Now,
what's the thing you want most this kind of weather?"

"The thing I want most is to have you skip out of here."

"What everybody wants is to keep cool, of course. Now, how are you
going to do it? Why, if you know when you are well off, you will do it
with this hat. But how? I will explain. If you compress air until it
attains a considerable pressure, and then suddenly release it, the
rapid expansion causes the air to absorb heat and to produce quite a
marked degree of cold. You know this, of course?"

"I wish you'd compress _your_ air, and then expand it in the ears of
somebody besides me."

"Now, in my invention I have utilized t