MY AUTO.

HAVING recently purchased an automobile from a man whom I have always considered my friend, I am prepared to give

the world the result of my experience.

My machine is a low, stylish, well-bred and rakish-looking affair, fully capable of going forty miles an hour, having averaged three since I have had it.

It consists of equal parts of acetylene, kerosene, gasoline, scrap iron and red paint. The acetylene and kerosene are used to run the fashionable drug store I carry in front. The gasoline is used to furnish the power I am popularly supposed to carry in the rear. The scrap iron is used to enable the man who relieves me in my repairs to keep his family in all the luxuries of a modern house. And the red paint is to reveal the fact that I am a deadgame sport.

My machine also has many other internal arrangements, so adjusted that at any moment I can fall on my knees and swear at them with all the pious fervor they are constantly in need of. It has several cylinders, so prepared by the loving hands of the maker that in case one of them doesn't work none of the others will. It has. a complete set of open-work radiators, to keep me from having cold feet. It has one of the thirstiest water tanks I have ever met outside of the theatrical profession. It has four rubber tires, with a set of magnetized inner tubes that scientifically attract all the homeless nails on the road. It has a hill climber with the motto, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again, even if you have to go back to the bottom of the hill and begin all over."

Aside from the fact that the spark plug doesn't spark at the right moment, when your admirers are gathered in a crowd waiting to see you dash off; that the motor doesn't mote, that the batteries get limp and languid when the atmosphere is not up to

the scratch, that the clutch doesn't clutch, and the engine is constantly sobbing itself to sleep instead of getting a proper move on, this is by all odds one of the best machines there is. All it needs is a well-lardered picnic basket, and a hair mattress to lie on when peering upward through the wilderness of nuts and bolts that constantly greet the eye of the tired traveler.

During the short time I have owned my auto I have been greatly attached to it-sometimes for hours at a time, in full view of the village church, but too far away from the nearest hotel to do any real good.

Nevertheless, I will, on persuasion, exchange it for a good horse. He need not necessarily have the full use of both eyes. One eye will do if he can see ten feet ahead of him on a dark night. I do not ask that he be sound in every respect. Having tried a sixteen horse power auto, I can get along with a tenthpower horse, if he can walk up a hill without taking a sudden freak to back down again at about a hundred miles an hour. I do not ask for a swell spark-plug horse. About all I need, in place of the electric, scrap-iron, red-painted, acetylene, gasoline, turbinated, fancy stock I have on hand at present, is a good honest, plain, old plug that will go four or five miles an hour on a jog-trot, and get me home in time for dinner.

THE ONLY WAY.

HAT shall we do?"

"WHAT

As Mrs. Tipton confronted her husband, her pale and worn face betrayed but too well the evidence of some crisis stupendous in its proportions.

"Listen," she continued, "and you will see the dreadful situation in which we are placed. This evening, as you remember, is the evening of our dinner party. Twelve people have been invited, and it is now noon. Well, will you believe it, just before

you came in the cook announced her intention of leaving us this afternoon. Oh, what shall we do?"

Tipton staggered back at this announcement. "Have you," he asked, partly recovering himself, "offered her every inducement to stay?"

"Everything. All I want her to do is to cook the dinner, and then she can go, but she will not consent."

Her husband's face took on a serious aspect. "There is one thing," he said, "that suggests itself to me. I will try it as a last resort."

He disappeared into the kitchen. It seemed to Mrs. Tipton as if hours had passed since he went away, but at last he came in with a triumphant smile. "She is going to stay," he said, “on one condition."

"And what is that?" asked Mrs. Tipton eagerly.

"This," replied Tipton; "that after she has cooked the dinner, she be allowed to preside at the head of the table."

Pride cometh after a fall.

An unhappy marriage can be cured by divorce. But what cure is there for two people living apart?

A man looking for opportunities passed two of them on the rcad.

Said one to the other: "What a hurry he is in! He never even noticed us!"

DRAMAS IN VERSE.

I.

THE MERRY MAGNATES.

A FINANCIAL FARCE-COMEDY.

The scene is laid on the steps of the Sub-Treasury, by special permission of John D. Rockefeller and Henry Rogers. The figure of George Washington is discreetly veiled for the occasion and moved to one side. The stage is filled with messenger boys, "curbers" and hurrying spectators of all kinds. As the curtain goes up, in a burst of music and amid a cluster of torchlights and a glare of Greek fire, there marches to the front a solid phalanx of Wall Street brokers. All sing.

SONG OF THE WALL STREET BROKERS.

We're an acrobatic caucus of ability
And of otherwise neurotical agility;
We're the bulwark of the nation,
And we thrive upon sensation,

And we make the most of human imbecility.

Canards and pools

Are our daily tools,

And our wits are the things we rely on.

We love to cram

On mint sauce and lamb,

And the beds that we make, others lie on.

We remove the surplus cash with great rapidity,

Of those who've earned it by their brows' humidity,
As a gambling aggregation.

We are sanctioned by the nation,

And we thrive upon the average cupidity.

To go long or short

Is our daily sport,

And there's never a priest to exhort us.

Our conscience is clear,

While the public dear

With its cash is prepared to support us.

We're a glittering gaudy success, Ha! Ha!
As everyone loves to confess, Ha! Ha!

We're a "bulwark" of civilization.

And while we are stacking the cards, Ha! Ha!
And hatching new fakes and canards, Ha! Ha!

We are dubbed "a good thing" by the nation!

A whistle is now heard in the distance, gradually growing nearer, until a huge chariot of gold and silver, made in the form of a railroad engine, is borne on the stage by an army of slaves. In the centre sits Pierpont Morgan. He waves a pigeon-blood ruby director's gavel solemnly to right and left, enjoining silence on all, and chants as follows:

CHANT OF PIERPONT MORGAN.

O ye minions deferential,

I'm a plutocrat potential,

In my presence you must hide unseemly mirth!
I'm a money king gigantic!

From Pacific to Atlantic

I am trying to reorganize the earth!

!