_And deeper still the deep-down oubliette,
Down thirty feet below the smiling day._
--_Tennyson._
_Sudden in the sun
An oubliette winks. Where is he? Gone._
--_Mrs. Browning._
Gaoler of the donjon deep--
Black from pit to parapet--
In whose depths forever sleep
Famous bores whose sun has set,
Daily ope the portal; let
In the bores who daily bore.
Thrust--sans sorrow or regret--
Thrust them through the Little Door.
Warder of Oblivion's keep--
Dismal dank, and black as jet--
Through the fatal wicket sweep
All the pests we all have met.
Prithee, overlook no bet;
Grab them--singly, by the score--
And, lest they be with us yet,
Thrust them through the Little Door.
Lead them to the awful leap
With a merry chansonette;
Push them blithely off the steep;
We'll forgive them and forget.
Toss them, like a cigarette,
To the far Plutonian floor.
Drop them where they'll cease to fret--
Thrust them through the Little Door.
Keeper of the Oubliette,
Wouldst thou have us more and more
In thine everlasting debt--
Thrust them through the Little Door.
* * *
To insure the safety of the traveling public, the Maroon Taxicab Company
is putting out a line of armored cabs. These will also be equipped with
automatic brakes, so that when a driver for a rival taxicab company
shoots a Maroon, the cab will come to a stop.
* * *
A neat and serviceable Christmas gift is a sawed-off shotgun. Carried in
your limousine, it may aid in saving your jewels when returning from the
opera.
* * *
"The entertainment committee of the Union League Club," so it says, "is
with considerable effort spending some of your money to please you." In
the clubs to which we belong there is no observable effort.
* * *
Certain toadstools are colored a pizenous pink underneath; a shade which
is also found on the cheeks of damosels and dames whom you see on the
avenue. Poor kalsomining, we call it.
* * *
When we begin to read a book we begin with the title page; but many
people, probably most, begin at "Chapter I." We have recommended books
to friends, and they have read them; and then they have said, "Tell me
something about the author." The preface would have told them, but they
do not read prefaces. Do you?
* * *
Although ongweed to the extinction point by the subject of names, we
have no right to assume that the subject is not of lively interest to
other people. So let it be recorded that George Demon was arrested in
Council Bluffs for beating his wife. Also, Miss Elsie Hugger is director
of dancing in the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. Furthermore, S. W. Henn
of the Iowa State College was selected as a judge for the National
Poultry Show. Moreover, G. O. Wildhack is in the automobile business in
Indianapolis, and Mrs. Cataract takes in washing in Peoria. Sleepy
weather, isn't it?
* * *
SUCH A ONE MIGHT HAVE DRAWN PRIAM'S CURTAIN IN THE DEAD OF NIGHT, AND
TOLD HIM HALF HIS TROY WAS BURNED.
[From the Eagle Grove, Ia., Eagle.]
The Rev. Winter was pastor of the M. E. Church many years ago, at the
time it was destroyed by a cyclone. Engineer Sam Wood broke the news to
Mr. Winter gently by shouting: "Your church has all blown to hell,
Elder!"
* * *