文摘

We are to consider the shade known as purple. It is a color justly in repute among the sons and daughters of man. Emperors claim it for their especial dye.

For a ~real~, a boy will show you his grave. It is back of the town near a little bridge that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab of wood stands at its head. Some one has burned upon the headstone with a hot iron this inscription:

So the king fell into a furious rage, so that none durst go near him for fear, and he gave out that since the Princess Ostla had disobeyed him there would be a great tourney, and to the knight who should prove himself of the greatest valor he would give the hand of the princess.

Said Mr. Kipling, "The cities are full of pride, challenging each to each." Even so.

The other day a poet friend of mine, who has lived in close communion with nature all his life, wrote a poem and took it to an editor.

"Critics," I continued. " But -- say -- if the Major can use a fairly good salesman and book- keeper down there in the store, let me know, will you?"

"What was this this graft? asked Johnny, with the impatience of the great public to whom tales are told.

A flock of citizen sheep scrambled out and another flock scrambled aboard. Ding-ding! The cattle cars of the Manhattan Elevated rattled away, and John Perkins drifted down the stairway of the station with the released flock.

For some months of a certain year a grim bandit infested the Texas border along the Rio Grande. Peculiarly striking to the optic nerve was this notorious marauder.

"That," said I, "sounds like one of those unintelligible remarks such as, 'Why is a policeman?'"

Ben Granger is a war veteran aged twenty-nine--which should enable you to guess the war. He is also principal merchant and postmaster of Cadiz, a little town over which the breezes from the Gulf of Mexico perpetually blow.