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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mintage, by Elbert Hubbard
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Mintage
+
+Author: Elbert Hubbard
+
+Release Date: January 12, 2006 [EBook #17504]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINTAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Roger Frank and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+'Tis here you'll find the mintage of my mind.--_Goethe._
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+                      [Illustration: Elbert Hubbard]
+
+                              Elbert Hubbard
+
+
+The Mintage
+Being Ten Stories & One More
+By Elbert Hubbard
+
+Copyright 1910
+Elbert Hubbard
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+FIVE BABIES
+TO THE WEST
+SIMEON STYLITES THE SYRIAN
+BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN
+SAM
+CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR
+A SPECIAL OCCASION
+UNCLE JOE AND AUNT MELINDA
+BILLY AND THE BOOK
+JOHN THE BAPTIST AND SALOME
+THE MASTER
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+      All success consists in this: you are doing something
+      for somebody--are benefiting humanity; and the feeling
+      of success comes from the consciousness of this.
+
+
+                           FIVE BABIES
+
+
+Riding on the Grand Trunk Railway a few weeks ago, going from
+Suspension Bridge to Chicago, I saw a sight so trivial that it seems
+unworthy of mention. Yet for three weeks I have remembered it, and so
+now I'll relate it, in order to get rid of it.
+
+And possibly these little incidents of life are the items that make or
+mar existence.
+
+But here is what I saw on that railroad train: five children, the
+oldest a girl of ten, and the youngest a baby boy of three. They were
+traveling alone and had come from Germany, duly tagged, ticketed and
+certified.
+
+They were going to their Grandmother at Waukegan, Illinois.
+
+The old lady was to meet them in Chicago.
+
+The children spoke not a word of English, but there is a universal
+language of the heart that speaks and is understood. So the trainmen
+and the children were on very chummy terms.
+
+Now, at London, Ontario, our train waited an hour for the Toronto and
+Montreal connections.
+
+Just before we reached London, I saw the Conductor take the three
+smallest little passengers to the washroom at the end of the car, roll
+up their sleeves, turn their collars in, and duly wash their hands and
+faces. Then he combed their hair. They accepted the situation as if
+they belonged to the Conductor's family, as of course they did for the
+time being. It was a domestic scene that caused the whole car to
+smile, and made everybody know everybody else. A touch of nature makes
+a whole coach kin.
+
+The children had a bushel-basket full of eatables, but at London that
+Conductor took the whole brood over to the dining-hall for supper, and
+I saw two fat men scrap as to who should have the privilege of paying
+for the kiddies' suppers. The children munched and smiled and said
+little things to each other in Teutonic whispers.
+
+After our train left London and the Conductor had taken up his
+tickets, he came back, turned over two seats and placed the cushions
+lengthwise. One of the trainmen borrowed a couple of blankets from the
+sleeping-cars, and with the help of three volunteered overcoats, the
+babies were all put to bed, and duly tucked in.
+
+I went back to my Pullman, and went to bed. And as I dozed off I kept
+wondering whether the Grandmother would be there in the morning to
+meet the little travelers. What sort of disaster had deprived them of
+parents, I did not know, nor did I care to ask. The children were
+alone, but among friends. They were strong and well, but they kept
+very close together and looked to the oldest girl as a mother.
+
+But to be alone in Chicago would be terrible! Would she come!
+
+And so I slept. In the morning there was another Conductor in charge,
+a man I had not before seen. I went into the day-coach, thinking that
+the man might not know about the babies, and that I might possibly
+help the little immigrants. But my services were not needed. The
+ten-year-old "little other mother" had freshened up her family, and the
+Conductor was assuring them, in awfully bad German, that their
+Grandmother would be there--although, of course, he didn't know
+anything at all about it.
+
+When the train pulled into the long depot and stopped, the Conductor
+took the baby boy on one arm and a little girl on the other.
+
+A porter carried the big lunch-basket, and the little other mother led
+a toddler on each side, dodging the hurrying passengers.
+
+Evidently I was the only spectator of the play.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+"Will she be there--will she be there?" I asked myself nervously.
+
+She was there, all right, there at the gate. The Conductor was
+seemingly as gratified as I. He turned his charges over to the old
+woman, who was weeping for joy, and hugging the children between
+bursts of lavish, loving Deutsch.
+
+I climbed into a Parmelee bus and said, "Auditorium Annex, please."
+
+And as I sat there in the bus, while they were packing the grips on
+top, the Conductor passed by, carrying a tin box in one hand and his
+train cap in the other.
+
+I saw an Elk's tooth on his watch-chain.
+
+I called to him, "I saw you help the babies--good boy!"
+
+He looked at me in doubt.
+
+"Those German children," I said; "I'm glad you were so kind to them!"
+
+"Oh," he answered, smiling; "yes, I had forgotten; why, of course,
+that is a railroad man's business, you know--to help everybody who
+needs help."
+
+He waved his hand and disappeared up the stairway that led to the
+offices.
+
+And it came to me that he had forgotten the incident so soon, simply
+because to help had become the habit of his life. He may read this,
+and he may not. There he was--big, bold, bluff and bronzed, his hair
+just touched with the frost of years, and beneath his brass buttons a
+heart beating with a desire to bless and benefit. I do not know his
+name, but the sight of the man, carrying a child on each arm, their
+arms encircling his neck in perfect faith, their long journey done,
+and he turning them over in safety to their Grandmother, was something
+to renew one's faith in humanity.
+
+Even a great Railway System has a soul.
+
+If you answer that corporations have no souls, I'll say: "Friend, you
+were never more mistaken in your life. The business that has no soul
+soon ceases to exist; and the success of a company or corporation
+turns on the kind of soul it possesses. Soul is necessary to service.
+Courtesy, kindness, honesty and efficiency are tangible soul-assets;
+and all good railroad men know it."
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+        By taking thought you can add cubits to your stature.
+
+
+                          TO THE WEST
+
+
+To stand by the open grave of one you have loved, and feel the sky
+shut down over less worth in the world is the supreme test.
+
+There you prove your worth, if ever.
+
+You must live and face the day, and face each succeeding day,
+realizing that "the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on,
+nor all your tears shall blot a line of it."
+
+Heroes are born, but it is calamity that discovers them.
+
+Once in Western Kansas, in the early Eighties, I saw a loaded
+four-horse wagon skid and topple in going across a gully.
+
+The driver sprang from his seat and tried to hold the wagon upright.
+
+The weight was too great for his strength, powerful man though he was.
+
+The horses swerved down the ditch instead of crossing it, and the
+overturning wagon caught the man and pinned him to the ground.
+
+Half a dozen of us sprang from our horses. After much effort the
+tangled animals were unhitched and the wagon was righted.
+
+The man was dead.
+
+In the wagon were the wife and six children, the oldest child a boy of
+fifteen. All were safely caught in the canvas top and escaped unhurt.
+We camped there--not knowing what else to do.
+
+We straightened the mangled form of the dead, and covered the body
+with a blanket.
+
+That night the mother and the oldest boy sat by the campfire and
+watched the long night away with their dead.
+
+The stars marched in solemn procession across the sky.
+
+The slow, crawling night passed.
+
+The first faint flush of dawn appeared in the East.
+
+I lay near the campfire, my head pillowed on a saddle, and heard the
+widowed mother and her boy talking in low but earnest tones.
+
+"We must go back--we must go back to Illinois. It is the only thing to
+do," I heard the mother moan.
+
+And the boy answered: "Mother, listen to what I say: We will go on--we
+will go on. We know where father was going to take us--we know what he
+was going to do. We will go on, and we will do what he intended to do,
+and if possible we will do it better. We will go on!"
+
+That first burst of pink in the East had turned to gold.
+
+Great streaks of light stretched from horizon to zenith.
+
+I could see in the dim and hazy light the hobbled horses grazing
+across the plain a quarter of a mile away.
+
+The boy of fifteen arose and put fuel on the fire.
+
+After breakfast I saw that boy get a spade, a shovel and a pick out of
+the wagon.
+
+With help of others a grave was dug there on the prairie.
+
+The dead was rolled in a blanket and tied about with thongs, after the
+fashion of the Indians.
+
+Lines were taken from a harness, and we lowered the body into the
+grave.
+
+The grave was filled up by friendly hands working in nervous haste.
+
+I saw the boy pat down the mound with the back of a spade.
+
+I saw him carve with awkward, boyish hands the initials of his father,
+the date of his birth and the day of his death.
+
+I saw him drive the slab down at the head of the grave.
+
+I saw him harness the four horses.
+
+I saw him help his little brothers into the canvas-covered wagon.
+
+I saw him help his mother climb the wheel as she took her place on the
+seat.
+
+I saw him spring up beside her.
+
+I saw him gather up the lines in his brown, slim hands, and swing the
+whip over the leaders, as he gave the shrill word of command and
+turned the horses to the West.
+
+And the cavalcade moved forward to the West--always to the West.
+
+The boy had met calamity and disaster. He had not flinched.
+
+In a single day he had left boyhood behind and become a man.
+
+And the years that followed proved him genuine.
+
+What was it worked the change? Grief and responsibility, nobly met.
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+      The church has aureoled and sainted the men and
+      women who have fought the Cosmic Urge. To do nothing
+      and to be nothing was regarded as a virtue.
+
+
+                    SIMEON STYLITES THE SYRIAN
+
+
+The church has aureoled and sainted the men and women who have fought
+the Cosmic Urge. To do nothing and to be nothing was regarded as a
+virtue.
+
+
+
+As the traveler journeys through Southern Italy, Sicily and certain
+parts of what was Ancient Greece, he will see broken arches, parts of
+viaducts, and now and again a beautiful column pointing to the sky.
+All about is the desert, or solitary pastures, and only this white
+milestone marking the path of the centuries and telling in its own
+silent, solemn and impressive way of a day that is dead.
+
+In the Fifth Century a monk called Simeon the Syrian, and known to us
+as Simeon Stylites, having taken the vow of chastity, poverty and
+obedience, began to fear greatly lest he might not be true to his
+pledge. And that he might live absolutely beyond reproach, always in
+public view, free from temptation, and free from the tongue of
+scandal, he decided to live in the world, and still not be of it. To
+this end he climbed to the top of a marble column, sixty feet high,
+and there on the capstone he began to live a life beyond reproach.
+
+Simeon was then twenty-four years old.
+
+The environment was circumscribed, but there were outlook, sunshine,
+ventilation--three good things. But beyond these the place had certain
+disadvantages. The capstone was a little less than three feet square,
+so Simeon could not lie down. He slept sitting, with his head bowed
+between his knees, and, indeed, in this posture he passed most of his
+time. Any recklessness in movement, and he would have slipped from his
+perilous position and been dashed to death upon the stones beneath.
+
+As the sun arose he stood up, just for a few moments, and held out his
+arms in greeting, blessing and in prayer. Three times during the day
+did he thus stretch his cramped limbs, and pray with his face to the
+East. At such times, those who stood near shared in his prayers, and
+went away blessed and refreshed.
+
+How did Simeon get to the top of the column?
+
+Well, his companions at the monastery, a mile away, said he was
+carried there in the night by a miraculous power; that he went to
+sleep in his stone cell and awoke on the pillar. Other monks said that
+Simeon had gone to pay his respects to a fair lady, and in wrath God
+had caught him and placed him on high. The probabilities are, however,
+Terese, as viewed by an unbeliever, that he shot a line over the
+column with a bow and arrow and then drew up a rope ladder and
+ascended with ease.
+
+However, in the morning the simple people of the scattered village saw
+the man on the column.
+
+All day he stayed there.
+
+And the next day he was still there.
+
+The days passed, with the scorching heat of the midday sun, and the
+cool winds of the night.
+
+Still Simeon kept his place.
+
+The rainy season came on. When the nights were cold and dark, Simeon
+sat there with bowed head, and drew the folds of his single garment, a
+black robe, over his face.
+
+Another season passed; the sun again grew warm, then hot, and the
+sandstorms raged and blew, when the people below almost lost sight of
+the man on the column. Some prophesied he would be blown off, but the
+morning light revealed his form, naked from the waist up, standing
+with hands outstretched to greet the rising sun.
+
+Once each day, as darkness gathered, a monk came with a basket
+containing a bottle of goat's milk and a little loaf of black bread,
+and Simeon dropped down a rope and drew up the basket.
+
+Simeon never spoke, for words are folly, and to the calls of saint or
+sinner he made no reply. He lived in a perpetual attitude of
+adoration.
+
+Did he suffer? During those first weeks he must have suffered terribly
+and horribly. There was no respite nor rest from the hard surface of
+the rock, and aching muscles could find no change from the cramped and
+perilous position. If he fell, it was damnation for his soul--all were
+agreed as to this.
+
+But man's body and mind accommodate themselves to almost any
+condition. One thing at least, Simeon was free from economic
+responsibilities, free from social cares and intrusion. Bores with sad
+stories of unappreciated lives and fond hopes unrealized, never broke
+in upon his peace. He was not pressed for time. No frivolous dame of
+tarnished fame sought to share with him his perilous perch. The people
+on a slow schedule, ten minutes late, never irritated his temper. His
+correspondence never got in a heap.
+
+Simeon kept no track of the days, having no engagements to meet, nor
+offices to perform, beyond the prayers at morn, midday and night.
+
+Memory died in him, the hurts became callouses, the world-pain died
+out of his heart, and to cling became a habit.
+
+Language was lost in disuse.
+
+The food he ate was minimum in quantity; sensation ceased, and the
+dry, hot winds reduced bodily tissue to a dessicated something called
+a saint--loved, feared and reverenced for his fortitude.
+
+This pillar, which had once graced the portal of a pagan temple, again
+became a place of pious pilgrimage, and people flocked to Simeon's
+rock, so that they might be near when he stretched out his black, bony
+hands to the East, and the spirit of Almighty God, for a space,
+hovered close around.
+
+So much attention did the abnegation of Simeon attract that various
+other pillars, marking the ruins of art and greatness gone, in that
+vicinity, were crowned with pious monks. The thought of these monks
+was to show how Christianity had triumphed over heathenism. Imitators
+were numerous. About then the Bishops in assembly asked, "Is Simeon
+sincere?" To test the matter of Simeon's pride, he was ordered to come
+down from his retreat.
+
+As to his chastity, there was little doubt, his poverty was beyond
+question, but how about obedience to his superiors?
+
+The order was shouted up to him in a Bishop's voice--he must let down
+his rope, draw up a ladder, and descend.
+
+Straightway Simeon made preparation to obey. And then the Bishops
+relented and cried, "We have changed our minds, and now order you to
+remain!"
+
+Simeon lifted his hands in adoration and thankfulness and renewed his
+lease.
+
+And so he lived on and on and on--he lived on the top of that pillar,
+never once descending for thirty years.
+
+All his former companions grew aweary, and one by one died, and the
+monastery bells tolled their requiem as they were laid to rest. Did
+Simeon hear the bells and say, "Soon it will be my turn"?
+
+Probably not. His senses had flown, for what good were they! The young
+monk who now at eventide brought the basket with the bottle of goat's
+milk and the loaf of brown bread was born since Simeon had taken his
+place on the pillar.
+
+"He has always been there," the people said, and crossed themselves
+hurriedly.
+
+But one evening when the young monk came with his basket, no line was
+dropped down from above. He waited and then called aloud, but all in
+vain.
+
+When sunrise came, there sat the monk, his face between his knees, the
+folds of his black robe drawn over his head. But he did not rise and
+lift his hands in prayer.
+
+All day he sat there, motionless.
+
+The people watched in whispered silence. Would he arise at sundown and
+pray, and with outstretched hands bless the assembled pilgrims?
+
+And as they watched, a vulture came sailing slowly through the blue
+ether, and circled nearer and nearer; and off on the horizon was
+another--and still another, circling nearer and ever nearer.
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+      I would write across the sky in letters of light this
+      undisputed truth, proven by every annal of history,
+      that the only way to help yourself is through loyalty
+      to those who trust and employ you.
+
+
+                  BATTLE OF THE LITTLE BIG HORN
+
+
+It was in the Spring of Eighteen Hundred Seventy-six that the Sioux on
+the Dakota Reservation became restless, and after various fruitless
+efforts to restrain them, moved Westward in a body.
+
+This periodic migration was a habit and a tradition of the tribe. For
+hundreds of years they had visited the buffalo country on an annual
+hunt.
+
+Now the buffaloes were gone, save for a few scattered herds in the
+mountains. The Indians did not fully realize this, although they
+realized that as the Whites came in, the game went out. The Sioux were
+hunters and horsemen by nature. They traveled and moved about with
+great freedom. If restrained or interfered with they grew irritable
+and then hostile.
+
+Now they were full of fight. The Whites had ruined the hunting-grounds;
+besides that, white soldiers had fought them if they moved to their
+old haunts, sacred for their use and bequeathed to them by their
+ancestors. In dead of Winter, when the snows lay deep and they were in
+their teepees, crouching around the scanty fire, soldiers had charged
+on horseback through the villages, shooting into the teepees, killing
+women and children.
+
+At the head of these soldiers was a white chief, whom they called
+Yellow Hair. He was a smashing, dashing, fearless soldier who
+understood the Indian ways and haunts, and then used this knowledge
+for the undoing of the Red Men.
+
+Yellow Hair wanted to keep them in one little place all the time, and
+desired that they should raise corn like cowardly Crows, when what
+they wanted was to be free and hunt!
+
+They feared Yellow Hair--and hated him.
+
+Custer was a man of intelligence--nervous, energetic, proud. His
+honesty and sincerity were beyond dispute. He was a natural Indian
+fighter. He could pull his belt one hole tighter and go three whole
+days without food. He could ride like the wind, or crawl in the grass,
+and knew how to strike, quickly and unexpectedly, as the first streak
+of dawn came into the East. Like Napoleon, he knew the value of time,
+and, in fact, he had somewhat of the dash and daring, not to mention
+the vanity, of the Corsican. His men believed in him and loved him,
+for he marched them to victory, and with odds of five to one had won
+again and again.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+But Custer had the defect of his qualities; and to use the Lincoln
+phrase, sometimes took counsel of his ambition.
+
+He had fought in the Civil War in places where no prisoners were
+taken, and where there was no commissary. And this wild, free life had
+bred in him a habit of unrest--a chafing at discipline and all rules of
+modern warfare.
+
+Results were the only things he cared for, and power was his Deity.
+
+When the Indians grew restless in the Spring of Seventy-six, Custer
+was called to Washington for consultation. President Grant was not
+satisfied with our Indian policy--he thought that in some ways the
+Whites were the real savages. The Indians he considered as children,
+not as criminals.
+
+Custer tried to tell him differently. Custer knew the bloodthirsty
+character of the Sioux, their treachery and cunning--he showed scars by
+way of proof!
+
+The authorities at Washington needed Custer. However, his view of the
+case did not mean theirs. Custer believed in the mailed hand, and if
+given the power he declared he would settle the Indian Question in
+America once and forever. His confidence and assumption and what
+Senator Dawes called swagger were not to their liking. Anyway, Custer
+was attracting altogether too much attention--the people followed him
+on Pennsylvania Avenue whenever he appeared.
+
+General Terry was chosen to head the expedition against the hostile
+Sioux, and Custer was to go as second in command.
+
+Terry was older than Custer, but Custer had seen more service on the
+plains. Custer demurred--threatened to resign--and wrote a note to the
+President asking for a personal interview and requesting a review of
+the situation.
+
+President Grant refused to see Custer, and reminded him that the first
+duty of a soldier was obedience.
+
+Custer left Washington, glum and sullen--grieved. But he was a soldier,
+and so he reported at Fort Lincoln, as ordered, to serve under a man
+who knew less about Indian fighting than did he.
+
+The force of a thousand men embarked on six boats at Bismarck. There a
+banquet was given in honor of Terry and Custer. "You will hear from us
+by courier before July Fourth," said Custer.
+
+He was still moody and depressed, but declared his willingness to do
+his duty.
+
+Terry did not like his attitude and told him so. Poor Custer was stung
+by the reprimand.
+
+He was only a boy, thirty-seven years old, to be sure, but with the
+whimsical, daring, ambitious and jealous quality of the center-rush.
+Custer at times had his eye on the White House--why not! Had not Grant
+been a soldier?
+
+Women worshiped Custer, and men who knew him, never doubted his
+earnestness and honesty. He lacked humor.
+
+He was both sincere and serious.
+
+The expedition moved on up the tortuous Missouri, tying up at night to
+avoid the treacherous sandbars that lay in wait.
+
+They had reached the Yellowstone River, and were getting into the
+Indian Country.
+
+To lighten the boats, Terry divided his force into two parts. Custer
+disembarked on the morning of the Twenty-fifth of June, with four
+hundred forty-three men, besides a dozen who looked after the
+pack-train.
+
+Scouts reported that the hostile Sioux were camped on the Little Big
+Horn, seventy-five miles across the country.
+
+Terry gave Custer orders to march the seventy-five miles in
+forty-eight hours, and attack the Indians at the head of their camp at
+daylight on the morning of the Twenty-seventh. There was to be no
+parley--panic was the thing desired, and when Custer had started the
+savages on the run, Terry would attack them at the other end of their
+village, and the two fleeing mobs of savages would be driven on each
+other, and then they would cast down their arms and the trick would be
+done.
+
+Next, to throw a cordon of soldiers around the camp and hold it would
+be easy.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+Custer and his men rode away at about eight o'clock on the morning of
+the Twenty-fifth. They were in high spirits, for the cramped quarters
+on the transports made freedom doubly grateful.
+
+They disappeared across the mesa and through the gray-brown hills, and
+soon only a cloud of dust marked their passage.
+
+After five miles had been turned off on a walk, Custer ordered a trot,
+and then, where the ground was level, a canter.
+
+On they went.
+
+They pitched camp at four o'clock, having covered forty miles. The
+horses were unsaddled and fed, and supper cooked and eaten.
+
+But sleep was not to be--these men shall sleep no more!
+
+The bugles sounded "Boots and Saddles." Before sunset they were again
+on their way.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+By three o'clock on the morning of the Twenty-sixth, they had covered
+more than seventy miles.
+
+They halted for coffee.
+
+The night, waiting for the dawn, was doubly dark.
+
+Fast-riding scouts had gone on ahead, and now reported the Indians
+camped just over the ridge, four miles away.
+
+Custer divided his force into two parts. The Indians were camped along
+the river for three miles. There were about two thousand of them, and
+the women and children were with them.
+
+Reno with two hundred fifty men was ordered to swing around and attack
+the village from the South. Custer with one hundred ninety-three men
+would watch the charge, and when the valiant Reno had started the
+panic and the Indians were in confusion, his force would then sweep
+around and charge them from the other end of the village.
+
+This was Terry's plan of battle, only Custer was going to make the
+capture without Terry's help.
+
+When Terry came up the following day, he would find the work all done
+and neatly, too. Results are the only things that count, and victory
+justifies itself.
+
+The battle would go down on the records as Custer's triumph!
+
+Reno took a two-mile detour, and just at peep of day, ere the sun had
+gilded the tops of the cottonwoods, charged, with yells and rapid
+firing, into the Indian village. Custer stood on the ridge, his men
+mounted and impatient just below on the other side.
+
+He could distinguish Reno's soldiers as they charged into the
+underbrush. Their shouts and the sound of firing filled his fighter's
+heart.
+
+The Indians were in confusion--he could see them by the dim light,
+stampeding. They were running in brownish masses right around the
+front of the hill where he stood. He ordered the bugles to blow the
+charge.
+
+The soldiers greeted the order with a yell--tired muscles, the
+sleepless night, its seventy-five miles of hard riding, were
+forgotten. The battle would be fought and won in less time than a man
+takes to eat his breakfast.
+
+Down the slope swept Custer's men to meet the fleeing foe.
+
+But now the savages had ceased to flee. They lay in the grass and
+fired.
+
+Several of Custer's horses fell.
+
+Three of his men threw up their hands, and dropped from their saddles,
+limp like bags of oats, and their horses ran on alone.
+
+The gully below was full of Indians, and these sent a murderous fire
+at Custer as he came. His horses swerved, but several ran right on and
+disappeared, horse and rider in the sunken ditch, as did Napoleon's
+men at Waterloo.
+
+The mad, headlong charge hesitated. The cottonwoods, the water and the
+teepees were a hundred yards away.
+
+Custer glanced back, and a mile distant saw Reno's soldiers galloping
+wildly up the steep slope of the hill.
+
+Reno's charge had failed--instead of riding straight down through the
+length of the village and meeting Custer, he had gotten only fifty
+rods, and then had been met by a steady fire from Indians who held
+their ground. He wedged them back, but his horses, already overridden,
+refused to go on, and the charging troops were simply carried out of
+the woods into the open, and once there they took to the hills for
+safety, leaving behind, dead, one-third of their force.
+
+Custer quickly realized the hopelessness of charging alone into a mass
+of Indians, who were exultant and savage in the thought of victory.
+Panic was not for them.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+They were armed with Springfield rifles, while the soldiers had only
+short-range carbines.
+
+The bugles now ordered a retreat, and Custer's men rode back to the
+top of the hill--with intent to join forces with Reno.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+Reno was hopelessly cut off. Determined Sioux filled the gully that
+separated the two little bands of brave men.
+
+Custer, evidently, thought that Reno had simply withdrawn to re-form
+his troop, and that any moment Reno would ride to his rescue.
+
+Custer decided to hold the hill.
+
+The Indians were shooting at him from long range, occasionally killing
+a horse.
+
+He told off his fours and ordered the horses sent to the rear.
+
+The fours led their horses back toward where they had left their
+packmules when they had stopped for coffee at three o'clock.
+
+But the fours had not gone half a mile when they were surrounded by a
+mob of Indians that just closed in on them. Every man was killed--the
+horses were galloped off by the women and children.
+
+Custer now realized that he was caught in a trap. The ridge where his
+men lay face down was half a mile long, and not more than twenty feet
+across at the top. The Indians were everywhere--in the gullies, in the
+grass, in little scooped-out holes. The bullets whizzed above the
+heads of Custer's men as they lay there, flattening their bodies in
+the dust.
+
+The morning sun came out, dazzling and hot.
+
+It was only nine o'clock.
+
+The men were without food and without water. The Little Big Horn
+danced over its rocky bed and shimmered in the golden light, only half
+a mile away, and there in the cool, limpid stream they had been
+confident they would now swim and fish, the battle over, while they
+proudly held the disarmed Indians against General Terry's coming.
+
+But the fight had not been won, and death lay between them and water.
+The only thing to do was to await Reno or Terry. Reno might come at
+any time, and Terry would arrive without fail at tomorrow's dawn--he
+had said so, and his word was the word of a soldier.
+
+Custer had blundered.
+
+The fight was lost.
+
+Now it was just a question of endurance. Noon came, and the buzzards
+began to gather in the azure.
+
+The sun was blistering hot--there was not a tree, nor a bush, nor a
+green blade of grass within reach.
+
+The men had ceased to joke and banter. The situation was serious. Some
+tried to smoke, but their parching thirst was thus only
+aggravated--they threw their pipes away.
+
+The Indians now kept up an occasional shooting.
+
+They were playing with the soldiers as a cat plays with a mouse.
+
+The Indian is a cautious fighter--he makes no sacrifices in order to
+win. Now he had his prey secure.
+
+Soon the soldiers would run out of ammunition, and then one more day,
+or two at least, and thirst and fatigue would reduce brave men into
+old women, and the squaws could rush in and pound them on the head
+with clubs.
+
+The afternoon dragged along its awful length. Time dwindled and
+dawdled.
+
+At last the sun sank, a ball of fire in the West.
+
+The moon came out.
+
+Now and then a Sioux would creep up into shadowy view, but a shot from
+a soldier would send him back into hiding. Down in the cottonwoods the
+squaws made campfires and were holding a dance, singing their songs of
+victory.
+
+Custer warned his men that sleep was death. This was their second
+sleepless night, and the men were feverish with fatigue. Some babbled
+in strange tongues, and talked with sisters and sweethearts and people
+who were not there--reason was tottering.
+
+With Custer was an Indian boy, sixteen years old, "Curley the Crow."
+Custer now at about midnight told Curley to strip himself and crawl
+out among the Indians, and if possible, get out through the lines and
+tell Terry of their position. Several of Custer's men had tried to
+reach water, but none came back.
+
+Curley got through the lines--his boldness in mixing with the Indians
+and his red skin saving him. He took a long way round and ran to tell
+Terry the seriousness of the situation.
+
+Terry was advancing, but was hampered and harassed by Indians for
+twenty miles. They fired at him from gullies, ridges, rocks, prairie-dog
+mounds, and then retreated. He had to move with caution. Instead of
+arriving at daylight as he expected, Terry was three hours behind. The
+Indians surrounding Custer saw the dust from the advancing troop.
+
+They hesitated to charge Custer boldly as he lay on the hilltop,
+entrenched by little ditches dug in the night with knives, tin cups
+and bleeding fingers.
+
+It was easy to destroy Custer, but it meant a dead Sioux for every
+white soldier.
+
+The Indians made sham charges to draw Custer's fire, and then
+withdrew.
+
+They circled closer. The squaws came up with sticks and stones and
+menaced wildly.
+
+Custer's fire grew less and less. He was running out of ammunition.
+
+Terry was only five miles away.
+
+The Indians closed in like a cloud around Custer and his few
+survivors.
+
+It was a hand-to-hand fight--one against a hundred.
+
+In five minutes every man was dead, and the squaws were stripping the
+mangled and bleeding forms.
+
+Already the main body of Indians was trailing across the plains toward
+the mountains.
+
+Terry arrived, but it was too late.
+
+An hour later Reno limped in, famished, half of his men dead or
+wounded, sick, undone.
+
+To follow the fleeing Indians was useless--the dead soldiers must be
+decently buried, and the living succored. Terry himself had suffered
+sore.
+
+The Indians were five thousand strong, not two. They had gathered up
+all the other tribes for more than a hundred miles. Now they moved
+North toward Canada. Terry tried to follow, but they held him off with
+a rear-guard, like white veterans. The Indians escaped across the
+border.
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+      Anybody can order, but to serve with grace, tact and
+      effectiveness is a fine art.
+
+
+                              SAM
+
+
+In San Francisco lived a lawyer--age, sixty--rich in money, rich in
+intellect, a business man with many interests.
+
+Now, this lawyer was a bachelor, and lived in apartments with his
+Chinese servant "Sam."
+
+Sam and his master had been together for fifteen years.
+
+The servant knew the wants of his employer as though he were his other
+self. No orders were necessary.
+
+If there was to be a company--one guest or a hundred--Sam was told the
+number, that was all, and everything was provided.
+
+This servant was cook, valet, watchman, friend.
+
+No stray, unwished-for visitor ever got to the master to rob him of
+his rest when he was at home.
+
+If extra help was wanted, Sam secured it; he bought what was needed;
+and when the lawyer awakened in the morning, it was to the singing of
+a tiny music-box with a clock attachment set for seven o'clock.
+
+The bath was ready; a clean shirt was there on the dresser, with studs
+and buttons in place; collar and scarf were near; the suit of clothes
+desired hung over a chair; the right pair of shoes, polished like a
+mirror, was at hand, and on the mantel was a half-blown rose, with the
+dew still upon it, for a boutonniere.
+
+Downstairs, the breakfast, hot and savory, waited.
+
+When the good man was ready to go to the office, silent as a shadow
+stood Sam in the hallway, with overcoat, hat and cane in hand.
+
+When the weather was threatening, an umbrella was substituted for the
+cane. The door was opened, and the master departed.
+
+When he returned at nightfall, on his approach the door swung wide.
+
+Sam never took a vacation; he seemed not to either eat or sleep.
+
+He was always near when needed; he disappeared when he should.
+
+He knew nothing and he knew everything.
+
+For weeks scarcely a word might pass between these men, they
+understood each other so well.
+
+The lawyer grew to have a great affection for his servant.
+
+He paid him a hundred dollars a month, and tried to devise other ways
+to show his gratitude; but Sam wanted nothing, not even thanks.
+
+All he desired was the privilege to serve.
+
+But one morning as Sam poured his master's coffee, he said quietly,
+without a shade of emotion on his yellow face, "Next week I leave
+you."
+
+The lawyer smiled.
+
+"Next week I leave you," repeated the Chinese; "I hire for you better
+man."
+
+The lawyer set down his cup of coffee. He looked at the white-robed
+servant. He felt the man was in earnest.
+
+"So you are going to leave me--I do not pay you enough, eh? That Doctor
+Sanders who was here--he knows what a treasure you are. Don't be a
+fool, Sam; I'll make it a hundred and fifty a month--say no more."
+
+"Next week I leave you--I go to China," said the servant impassively.
+
+"Oh, I see! You are going back for a wife? All right, bring her
+here--you will return in two months? I do not object; bring your wife
+here--there is work for two to keep this place in order. The place is
+lonely, anyway. I'll see the Collector of the Port, myself, and
+arrange your passage-papers."
+
+"I go to China next week: I need no papers--I never come back," said
+the man with exasperating calmness and persistence.
+
+"By God, you shall not go!" said the lawyer.
+
+"By God, I will!" answered the heathen.
+
+It was the first time in their experience together that the servant
+had used such language, or such a tone, toward his master.
+
+The lawyer pushed his chair back, and after an instant said, quietly,
+"Sam, you must forgive me; I spoke quickly. I do not own you--but tell
+me, what have I done--why do you leave me this way, you know I need
+you!"
+
+"I will not tell you why I go--you laugh."
+
+"No, I shall not laugh."
+
+"You will."
+
+"I say, I will not."
+
+"Very well, I go to China to die!"
+
+"Nonsense! You can die here. Haven't I agreed to send your body back
+if you die before I do?"
+
+"I die in four weeks, two days!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"My brother, he in prison. He twenty-six, I fifty. He have wife and
+baby. In China they accept any man same family to die. I go to China,
+give my money to my brother--he live, I die!"
+
+The next day a new Chinaman appeared as servant in the lawyer's
+household. In a week this servant knew everything, and nothing, just
+like Sam.
+
+And Sam disappeared, without saying good-by.
+
+He went to China and was beheaded, four weeks and two days from the
+day he broke the news of his intent to go.
+
+His brother was set free.
+
+And the lawyer's household goes along about as usual, save when the
+master calls for "Sam," when he should say, "Charlie."
+
+At such times there comes a kind of clutch at his heart, but he says
+nothing.
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+        When power and beauty meet, the world would do well
+        to take to its cyclone-cellar.
+
+
+                      CLEOPATRA AND CAESAR
+
+
+The sole surviving daughter of the great King Ptolemy of Egypt,
+Cleopatra was seventeen years old when her father died.
+
+By his will the King made her joint heir to the throne with her
+brother Ptolemy, several years her junior. And according to the custom
+not unusual among royalty at that time, it was provided that Ptolemy
+should become the husband of Cleopatra.
+
+She was a woman--her brother a child.
+
+She had intellect, ambition, talent. She knew the history of her own
+country, and that of Assyria, Greece and Rome; and all the written
+languages of the world were to her familiar. She had been educated by
+the philosophers, who had brought from Greece the science of
+Pythagoras and Plato. Her companions had been men--not women, or
+nurses, or pious, pedantic priests.
+
+Through the veins of her young body pulsed and leaped life, plus.
+
+She abhorred the thought of an alliance with her weak-chinned brother;
+and the ministers of State, who suggested another husband as a
+compromise, were dismissed with a look.
+
+They said she was intractable, contemptuous, unreasonable, and was
+scheming for the sole possession of the throne.
+
+She was not to be diverted even by ardent courtiers who were sent to
+her, and who lay in wait ready with amorous sighs--she scorned them
+all.
+
+Yet she was a woman still, and in her dreams she saw the coming
+prince.
+
+She was banished from Alexandria.
+
+A few friends followed her, and an army was formed to force from the
+enemy her rights.
+
+But other things were happening--a Roman army came leisurely drifting
+in with the tide and disembarked at Alexandria. The Great Caesar
+himself was in command--a mere holiday, he said. He had intended to
+join the land forces of Mark Antony and help crush the rebellious
+Pompey, but Antony had done the trick alone; and only a few days
+before, word had come that Pompey was dead.
+
+Caesar knew that civil war was on in Alexandria, and being near he
+sailed slowly in, sending messengers on ahead warning both sides to
+lay down their arms.
+
+With him was the far-famed invincible Tenth Legion that had ravished
+Gaul. Caesar wanted to rest his men and, incidentally, to reward them.
+They took possession of the city without a blow.
+
+Cleopatra's troops laid down their arms, but Ptolemy's refused. They
+were simply chased beyond the walls, and their punishment for the time
+being was deferred.
+
+Caesar took possession of the palace of the King, and his soldiers
+accommodated themselves in the houses, public buildings, and temples
+as best they could.
+
+Cleopatra asked for a personal interview, in order to present her
+cause.
+
+Caesar declined to meet her--he understood the trouble--many such cases
+he had seen. Claimants for thrones were not new to him. Where two
+parties quarreled, both are right--or wrong--it really mattered little.
+
+It is absurd to quarrel--still more foolish to fight.
+
+Caesar was a man of peace, and to keep the peace he would appoint one
+of his generals governor, and make Egypt a Roman colony.
+
+In the meantime he would rest a week or two, with the kind permission
+of the Alexandrians, and write upon his "Commentaries"--no, he would
+not see either Cleopatra or Ptolemy--any desired information they would
+get through his trusted emissaries.
+
+In the service of Cleopatra was a Sicilian slave who had been her
+personal servant since she was a little girl. This man's name was
+Appolidorus. He was a man of giant stature and imposing mien. Ten
+years before his tongue had been torn out as a token that as he was to
+attend a queen he should tell no secrets.
+
+Appolidorus had but one thought in life, and that was to defend his
+gracious queen. He slept at the door of Cleopatra's tent, a naked
+sword at his side, held in his clenched and brawny hand.
+
+And now behold at dusk of day the grim and silent Appolidorus,
+carrying upon his giant shoulders a large and curious rug, rolled up
+and tied 'round at each end with ropes.
+
+He approaches the palace of the King, and at the guarded gate hands a
+note to the officer in charge. This note gives information to the
+effect that a certain patrician citizen of Alexandria, being glad that
+the gracious Caesar had deigned to visit Egypt, sends him the richest
+rug that can be woven--done, in fact, by his wife and daughters and
+held against this day, awaiting Rome's greatest son.
+
+The officer reads the note, and orders a soldier to accept the gift
+and carry it within--presents were constantly arriving. A sign from the
+dumb giant makes the soldier stand back--the present is for Caesar and
+can be delivered only in person. "Lead and I will follow," were the
+words done in stern pantomime. The officer laughs, sends in the note,
+and the messenger soon returning, signifies that the present is
+acceptable and the slave bearing it shall be shown in. Appolidorus
+shifts his burden to the other shoulder, and follows the soldier
+through the gate, up the marble steps, along the splendid hallway,
+lighted by flaring torches and lined with reclining Roman soldiers.
+
+At a door they pause an instant, there is a whispered word--they enter.
+
+The room is furnished as becomes the room that is the private library
+of the King of Egypt. In one corner, seated at the table, pen in hand,
+sits a man of middle age, pale, clean-shaven, with hair close-cropped.
+His dress is not that of a soldier--it is the flowing white robe of a
+Roman Priest. Only one servant attends this man, a secretary, seated
+near, who rises and explains that the present is acceptable and shall
+be deposited on the floor.
+
+The pale man at the table looks up, smiles a tired smile and murmurs
+in a perfunctory way his thanks.
+
+Appolidorus having laid his burden on the floor, kneels to untie the
+ropes. The secretary explains that he need not trouble, pray bear
+thanks and again thanks to his master--he need not tarry!
+
+The dumb man on his knees neither hears nor heeds. The rug is
+unrolled.
+
+From out the roll a woman leaps lightly to her feet--a beautiful young
+woman of twenty.
+
+She stands there, poised, defiant, gazing at the pale-faced man seated
+at the table.
+
+He is not surprised--he never was. One might have supposed he received
+all his visitors in this manner.
+
+"Well?" he says in a quiet way, a half-smile parting his thin lips.
+
+The breast of the woman heaves with tumultuous emotion--just an
+instant. She speaks, and there is no tremor in her tones. Her voice is
+low, smooth and scarcely audible: "I am Cleopatra."
+
+The man at the desk lays down his pen, leans back and gently nods his
+head, as much as to say, indulgently, "Yes, my child, I hear--go on!"
+
+"I am Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and I would speak with thee, alone."
+
+She pauses; then raising one jeweled arm motions to Appolidorus that
+he shall withdraw.
+
+With a similar motion, the man at the desk signifies the same to his
+astonished secretary.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+Appolidorus went down the long hallway, down the stone steps and
+waited at the outer gate amid the throng of soldiers. They questioned
+him, gibed him, railed at him, but they got no word in reply.
+
+He waited--he waited an hour, two--and then came a messenger with a note
+written on a slip of parchment. The words ran thus: "Well-beloved
+'Dorus: Veni, vidi, vici! Go fetch my maids; also, all of our personal
+belongings."
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+        As the cities are all only two days from famine, so
+        is man's life constantly but a step from dissolution.
+
+
+                       A SPECIAL OCCASION
+
+
+Once on a day, I spoke at the Athenaeum, New Orleans, for the Young
+Men's Hebrew Association.
+
+When they had asked my fee I answered, "One Hundred Fifty Dollars."
+The reply was, "We will pay you Two Hundred--it is to be a special
+occasion."
+
+A carriage was sent to my hotel for me. The Jews may be close traders,
+but when it comes to social functions, they know what to do. The Jew
+is the most generous man in the world, even if he can be at times cent
+per cent.
+
+As I approached the Athenaeum I thought, "What a beautiful building!"
+It was stone and brick--solid, subdued, complete and substantial. The
+lower rooms were used for the Hebrew Club. Upstairs stretched the
+splendid hall, as I could tell from the brilliantly lighted windows.
+
+Inside, I noticed that the stairways were carpeted with Brussels.
+Glancing through the wide doorways, I beheld an audience of more than
+two thousand people. The great chandeliers sent out a dazzling glory
+from their crystal and gold. At the sides, rich tapestries and
+hangings of velvet covered the windows.
+
+"A beautiful building," I said to my old-time friend, Maurice J. Pass,
+the Secretary of the Club.
+
+He smiled in satisfaction and replied, "Well, we seldom let things go
+by default--you have tonight as fine an audience as ever assembled in
+New Orleans."
+
+We passed down a side hallway and under the stage, preparatory to
+going on the platform. In this room below the stage a single electric
+light shone. The place was dark and dingy, in singular contrast to the
+beauty, light, cleanliness and order just beyond. In the corner were
+tables piled high--evidently used for banquets--broken furniture and
+discarded boxes.
+
+Several smart young men in full dress sat on the tables smoking
+cigarettes. One young man said in explanation, "We were crowded
+out--had to give up our seats to ladies--so we are going to sit on the
+stage."
+
+The soft blue smoke from the cigarettes seemed to hug close about the
+lonely electric light.
+
+I saw the smoke and thought that beside the odor of tobacco I detected
+the smell of smoldering pine.
+
+"Isn't it a trifle smoky here?" I said to the young man nearest me.
+
+He laughed at this remark and handed me a cigarette.
+
+The Secretary of the Club and I went up the narrow stairs to the stage.
+As we stood there behind the curtain I looked at the pleasant-faced
+man. "You didn't detect the odor of burning wood down there, did you?"
+I asked.
+
+"No; but you see the windows are open, and there are bonfires outside,
+I suppose."
+
+"I am a fool," I thought; "and James Whitcomb Riley was right when he
+said that the speaker who is about to make his bow to an audience is
+always so keyed up that at the moment he is incapable of sane
+thinking."
+
+I excused myself and walked over to an open window at the back of the
+stage and looked down.
+
+It must have been forty feet to the stony street beneath.
+
+Then I went to a side window and threw up the sash. This window looked
+out on a roof ten or twelve feet below. I got a broken broom that
+stood in the corner and propped the window open.
+
+The thought of fire was upon me and I was inwardly planning what I
+would do in case of a stampede. I am always thinking about what I
+would do should this or that happen. Nothing can surprise me--not even
+death. If any of my best helpers should leave me, I have it all
+planned exactly whom I will put in their places. I have it arranged
+who will take my own place--my will is made and my body is to be
+cremated.
+
+"Cremated? Not tonight!" I said to myself, as I placed the broom under
+the sash. "If a panic occurs, the people will go out of the doors and
+I will stick to the stage until my coat-tails singe. I'll say that the
+fire is in an adjoining building; then I'll smilingly bow myself off
+the stage and gently drop out of that window."
+
+"All ready when you are," said Mr. Fass.
+
+I passed out on the stage before that vast sea of faces.
+
+It was a glorious sight. There was a row of military men from the
+French warship in the harbor, down in front; priests, and ladies with
+sparkling diamonds; a bishop wearing a purple vestment under his black
+gown sat to one side; a stout lady in decollete waved a feather fan in
+rhythmic, mystic motion, far back to the left.
+
+The audience applauded encouragingly, I wished I was back in that dear
+East Aurora. But I began.
+
+In a few minutes my heart ceased to thump and I knew we were off.
+
+I spoke for two hours, and I spoke well.
+
+I did not push the lecture in front of me, nor did I drag it behind. I
+got the chancery twist on it and carried it off big, as I do about one
+time in ten. I finished in a whirlwind of applause, with the bishop
+crying "Bravo!" and the fat lady with the fifty-dollar feather fan
+beaming approbation.
+
+Fass stood in the wings to congratulate me.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+I shook hands with a hundred. The house slowly emptied. I bade the
+genial Fass good-by. He took my hand in both of his. "You will come
+back! You must come back!" he said.
+
+He walked with me, bareheaded, to my carriage.
+
+He again pressed my hand.
+
+I rode to my hotel and went to bed, and to sleep.
+
+I was awakened by a bright glare of light that filled my room.
+
+I got up and looked at my watch. It was just midnight.
+
+Off to the East I saw red tongues of angry flame streaking the sky
+from horizon to zenith.
+
+"It is the Jewish Club, all right," I said.
+
+I pulled down the blind and went back to bed.
+
+When I went down to breakfast at seven o'clock in the morning, I heard
+the newsboys in the streets crying, "All about the fire!" I bought a
+paper and read the headline, "Hubbard's Lecture Hot Stuff!"
+
+I walked out Saint Charles Avenue and viewed the smoldering ruins
+where only a few hours before I had spoken to more than two thousand
+people--where the bishop in purple vestment had cried "Bravo!" and the
+stout lady with feathered fan had beamed approval.
+
+"Was anybody hurt?" I asked one of the policemen on guard.
+
+"Only one man killed--Fass, the Secretary; I believe he lies somewhere
+over there to the left, beneath that toppled wall."
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+        The person who reasons from a false premise is
+        always funny--to other folks.
+
+
+                  UNCLE JOE AND AUNT MELINDA
+
+
+The opinion prevails all through the truly rural districts that the
+big cities are for the most part given over to Confidence Men.
+
+And the strange part is that the opinion is correct.
+
+But it should not be assumed that all the people in, say, Buffalo, are
+moral derelicts--there are many visitors there, most of the time, from
+other sections.
+
+And while at all times one should exercise caution, yet to assume that
+the party who is "fresh" is intent on high crimes and misdemeanors may
+be a rather hasty and unjust generalization.
+
+For instance, there are Uncle Joe and Aunt Melinda, who live eight
+miles back from East Aurora, at Wales Hollow. They had been married
+for forty-seven years, and had never taken a wedding-journey. They
+decided to go to Buffalo and spend two days at a hotel regardless of
+expense.
+
+Much had been told them about the Confidence Men who hang around the
+railroad-station, and they were prepared.
+
+They arrived at East Aurora, where they were to take the train, an
+hour ahead of time. The Jerkwater came in and they were duly seated,
+when all at once Uncle Joe rushed for the door, jumped off and made
+for the waiting-room looking for his carpetbag. It was on the train
+all right, but he just forgot, and feeling sure he had left it in the
+station made the grand skirmish as aforesaid.
+
+The result was that the train went off and left your Uncle Joseph.
+
+Aunt Melinda was much exercised, but the train-hands pacified her by
+assurances that her husband would follow on the next train, and she
+should simply wait for him in the depot at Buffalo.
+
+Now the Flyer was right behind the Jerkwater, and Uncle Joe took the
+Flyer and got to Buffalo first. When the Jerkwater came in, Uncle Joe
+was on the platform waiting for Aunt Melinda.
+
+As she disembarked he approached her.
+
+She shied and passed on.
+
+He persisted in his attentions.
+
+Then it was that she shook her umbrella at him and bade him hike. The
+eternally feminine in her nature prompted self-preservation. She
+banked on her reason--woman's reason--not her intuition. She had started
+first--her husband could only come on a later train.
+
+"Go 'way and leave me alone," she shouted in shrill falsetto. "You
+have got yourself up to look like my Joe--and that idiotic grin on your
+homely face is just like my Joe, but no city sharper can fool me, and
+if you don't go right along I'll call for the perlice!"
+
+She called for the police, and Uncle Joe had to show a strawberry-mark
+to prove his identity, before he received recognition.
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+        To be your brother's keeper is beautiful if you do
+        not cease to be his friend.
+
+
+                      BILLY AND THE BOOK
+
+
+One day last Winter in New York I attended a police court on a side
+street, just off lower Broadway. I was waiting to see my old friend
+Rosenfeld in the Equitable Life Building, but as his office didn't
+open up until nine o'clock, I put in my time at the police court.
+
+There was the usual assortment of drunks, petty thieves--male and
+female, black, white and coffee-colored--disorderlies, vagabonds and a
+man in full-dress suit and a wide expanse of dull ecru shirt-bosom.
+
+The place was stuffy, foul-smelling, and reeked with a stale
+combination of tobacco and beer and patchouli, and tears, curses, fear
+and promises unkept.
+
+The Judge turned things off, but without haste. He showed more
+patience and consideration than one usually sees on the bench. His
+judgments seemed to be gentle and just.
+
+The courtroom was clearing, and I started to go.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+As I was passing down the icy steps a piping child's voice called to
+me, "Mister, please give me a lift!"
+
+There at the foot of the steps, standing in the snow, was a slender
+slip of a girl, yellow and earnest, say ten years old, with a shawl
+pinned over her head. She held in her hand a rope, and this rope was
+tied to a hand-sled. On this sled sat a little boy, shivering, dumpy
+and depressed, his bare red hands clutching the seat.
+
+"Mister, I say, please give me a lift!"
+
+"Sure!" I said.
+
+It was a funny sight.
+
+This girl seemed absolutely unconscious of herself. She was not at all
+abashed, and very much in earnest about something.
+
+Evidently she had watched the people coming out and had waited until
+one appeared that she thought safe to call on for help.
+
+"Of course I'll give you a lift--what is it you want me to do?"
+
+"I've got to go inside and see the Judge. It's about my brudder here.
+He is six, goin' on seven, and they sent him home from school 'cause
+they said he wasn't old enough. I'm going to have that teacher
+'rested. I've got the Bible here that says he's six years old. If
+you'll carry the book I'll bring Billy and the sled!"
+
+"Where is the Bible?" I asked.
+
+"Billy's settin' on it."
+
+It was a big, black, greasy Family Bible, evidently a relic of better
+days. It had probably been hidden under the bed for safety.
+
+The girl grappled the sled with one hand, and with the other Billy's
+little red fist.
+
+I followed, carrying the big, black, greasy Family Bible.
+
+Evidently this girl had been here before. She walked around the end of
+the judicial bar, and laid down the sled. Then she took the Bible out
+of my hands. It was about all she could do to lift it.
+
+In a shrill, piping voice, full of business, and very much in earnest,
+she addressed the Judge: "I say, Mister Judge, they sent my brudder
+Billy away from school, they did. He's six, goin' on seven, and I want
+that teacher 'rested and brought here so you can tell her to let Billy
+go to school. Here is our Family Bible--you can see for yourself how
+old Billy is!"
+
+The Judge adjusted his glasses, stared, and exclaimed, "God bless my
+soul!"
+
+Then he called a big, blue-coated officer over and said: "Mike, you go
+with this little girl and her brother, and tell that teacher, if
+possible, to allow the boy to go to school; that I say he is old
+enough. You understand! If you do not succeed, come back and tell me
+why."
+
+The officer smiled and saluted.
+
+The big policeman took the little boy in his arms. The girl carried
+the sled, and I followed with the Family Bible.
+
+The officer looked at me--"Newspaper man, I s'pose?"
+
+"Yes," I said.
+
+"What paper?"
+
+"The American."
+
+"It's the best ever."
+
+"I think so--possibly with a few exceptions."
+
+"She's the queerest lot yet, is this kid," and the big bluecoat jerked
+his thumb toward the girl.
+
+I suggested that we go to the restaurant across the way and get a bite
+of something to eat.
+
+"I'm not hungry," said the officer, "but the youngsters look as if
+they hadn't et since day before yesterday."
+
+We lined up at the counter.
+
+The officer drank two cups of coffee and ate a ham sandwich, two
+hard-boiled eggs, a plate of cakes and a piece of pie.
+
+The girl and her brother each had a plate of cakes, a piece of pie and
+a glass of milk.
+
+"What's yours?" asked the waiter.
+
+"Same," said I.
+
+As I did not care for the cakes, the officer cleaned the plate for me.
+
+I didn't have time to go to the school, but the officer assured me
+that he would "fix it," and he winked knowingly, as if he had looked
+after such things before. He was kind, but determined, and I had
+confidence he would see that the little boy was duly admitted.
+
+I started up the street alone.
+
+They went the other way. The officer carried the little boy.
+
+The girl with the shawl over her head followed, pulling the hand-sled,
+and on the sled rested the big, black Family Bible. I lost sight of
+them as they turned the corner.
+
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+              An act is only a crystallized thought.
+
+
+                   JOHN THE BAPTIST AND SALOME
+
+
+John the Baptist, the strong, fine youth, came up out of the
+wilderness crying in the streets of Jerusalem, "Repent ye! Repent ye!"
+
+Salome heard the call and from her window looked with half- closed,
+catlike eyes upon the semi-naked, young fanatic.
+
+She smiled, did this idle creature of luxury, as she lay there amid
+the cushions on her couch, and gazed through the casement upon the
+preacher in the street.
+
+Suddenly a thought came to her.
+
+She arose on her elbow--she called her slaves.
+
+They clothed her in a gaudy gown, dressed her hair, and led her forth.
+
+Salome followed the wild, weird, religious enthusiast.
+
+She pushed through the crowd and placed herself near the man, so the
+smell of her body would reach his nostrils.
+
+His eyes ranged the swelling lines of her body.
+
+Their eyes met.
+
+She half-smiled and gave him that look which had snared the soul of
+many another.
+
+But he only gazed at her with passionless, judging intensity and
+repeated his cry, "Repent ye. Repent ye, for the day is at hand!"
+
+Her reply, uttered soft and low, was this: "I would kiss thy lips!"
+
+He moved away and she reached to seize his garment, repeating, "I
+would kiss thy lips--I would kiss thy lips!"
+
+He turned aside, and forgot her, as he continued his warning cry, and
+went his way.
+
+The next day she waylaid the youth again; as he came near she suddenly
+and softly stepped forth and said in that same low, purring voice, "I
+would kiss thy lips!"
+
+He repulsed her with scorn.
+
+She threw her arms about him and sought to draw his head down near
+hers.
+
+He pushed her from him with sinewy hands, sprang as from a pestilence,
+and was lost in the pressing throng.
+
+That night she danced before Herod Antipas, and when the promise was
+recalled that she should have anything she wished, she named the head
+of the only man who had ever turned away from her. "The head of John
+the Baptist on a charger!"
+
+In an hour the wish was gratified.
+
+Two eunuchs stood before Salome with a silver tray bearing its
+fearsome burden.
+
+The woman smiled--a smile of triumph, as she stepped forth with
+tinkling feet.
+
+A look of pride came over the painted face.
+
+Her jeweled fingers reached into the blood-matted hair. She lifted the
+head aloft, and the bracelets on her brown, bare arms fell to her
+shoulders, making strange music. Her face pressed the face of the
+dead.
+
+In exultation she exclaimed, "I have kissed thy lips!"
+
+
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+      He who influences the thought of his time influences
+      the thought of all the time that follows. And he has
+      made his impress upon eternity.
+
+
+                            THE MASTER
+
+
+Giovanni Bellini was his name.
+
+Yet when people who loved beautiful pictures spoke of "Gian," every
+one knew who was meant; but to those who worked at art he was "The
+Master." He was two inches under six feet in height, strong and
+muscular. In spite of his seventy summers his carriage was erect, and
+there was a jaunty suppleness about his gait that made him seem much
+younger. In fact, no one would have believed he had lived over his
+threescore and ten, were it not for the iron-gray hair that fluffed
+out all around under the close-fitting black cap, and the bronzed
+complexion--sun-kissed by wind and by weather--which formed a trinity of
+opposites that made people turn and stare.
+
+Queer stories used to be told about him. He was a skilful gondolier,
+and it was the daily row back and forth from the Lido that gave him
+that face of bronze. Folks said he ate no meat and drank no wine, and
+that his food was simply ripe figs in the season, with coarse rye
+bread and nuts.
+
+Then there was that funny old hunchback, a hundred years old at least,
+and stone-deaf, who took care of the gondola, spending the whole day,
+waiting for his master, washing the trim, graceful, blue-black boat,
+arranging the awning with the white cords and tassels, and polishing
+the little brass lions at the sides. People tried to question the old
+hunchback, but he gave no secrets away. The master always stood up
+behind and rowed; while down on the cushions rode the hunchback, the
+guest of honor.
+
+There stood the master erect, plying the oar, his long black robe
+tucked up under the dark blue sash that exactly matched the color of
+the gondola. The man's motto might have been, "Ich Dien," or that
+passage of Scripture, "He that is greatest among you shall be your
+servant." Suspended around his neck by a slender chain was a bronze
+medal, presented by vote of the Signoria when the great picture of
+"The Transfiguration" was unveiled. If this medal had been a crucifix,
+and you had met the wearer in San Marco, one glance at the finely
+chiseled features, the black cap and the flowing robe and you would
+have said at once the man was a priest, Vicar-General of some
+important diocese. But seeing him standing erect on the stern of a
+gondola, the wind caressing the dark gray hair, you would have been
+perplexed until your gondolier explained in serious undertone that you
+had just passed "the greatest Painter in all Venice, Gian, the
+Master."
+
+Then, if you showed curiosity and wanted to know further, the
+gondolier would have told you more about this strange man.
+
+The canals of Venice are the highways, and the gondoliers are like
+'bus-drivers in Piccadilly--they know everybody and are in close touch
+with all the Secrets of State. When you get to the Gindecca and tie up
+for lunch, over a bottle of Chianti, your gondolier will tell you
+this:
+
+The hunchback there in the gondola, rowed by the Master, is the Devil,
+who has taken that form just to be with and guard the greatest artist
+the world has ever seen. Yes, Signor, that clean-faced man with his
+frank, wide-open, brown eyes is in league with the Evil One. He is the
+man who took young Tiziano from Cadore into his shop, right out of a
+glass-factory, and made him a great artist, getting him commissions
+and introducing him everywhere! And how about the divine Giorgione who
+called him father? Oho!
+
+And who is Giorgione? The son of some unknown peasant woman. And if
+Bellini wanted to adopt him, treat him as his son indeed, kissing him
+on the cheek when he came back just from a day's visit to Mestre,
+whose business was it! Oho!
+
+Beside that, his name isn't Giorgione--it is Giorgio Barbarelli. And
+didn't this Giorgio Barbarelli, and Tiziano from Cadore, and Espero
+Carbonne, and that Gustavo from Nuremberg, and the others paint most
+of Gian's pictures? Surely they did. The old man simply washes in the
+backgrounds and the boys do the work. About all old Gian does is to
+sign the picture, sell it and pocket the proceeds. Carpaccio helps
+him, too--Carpaccio who painted the loveliest little angel sitting
+cross-legged playing the biggest mandolin you ever saw in your life.
+
+That is genius, you know, the ability to get some one else to do the
+work, and then capture the ducats and the honors for yourself. Of
+course, Gian knows how to lure the boys on--something has to be done in
+order to hold them. Gian buys a picture from them now and then; his
+studio is full of their work--better than he can do. Oh, he knows a
+good thing when he sees it. These pictures will be valuable some day,
+and he gets them at his own price. It was Antonello of Messina who
+introduced oil-painting into Venice. Before that they mixed their
+paints with water, milk or wine. But when Antonello came along with
+his dark, lustrous pictures, he set all artistic Venice astir. Gian
+Bellini discovered the secret, they say, by feigning to be a gentleman
+and going to the newcomer and sitting for his picture. He it was who
+discovered that Antonello mixed his colors with oil. Oho!
+
+Of course, not all of the pictures in his studio are painted by the
+boys: some are painted by that old Dutchman what's-his-name--oh, yes,
+Durer, Alberto Durer of Nuremberg. Two Nuremberg painters were in that
+very gondola last week just where you sit--they are here in Venice now,
+taking lessons from Gian, they said. Gian was up there to Nuremberg
+and lived a month with Durer--they worked together, drank beer
+together, I suppose, and caroused. Gian is very strict about what he
+does in Venice, but you can never tell what a man will do when he is
+away from home. The Germans are a roystering lot--but they do say they
+can paint. Me? I have never been up there--and do not want to go,
+either--there are no canals there. To be sure, they print books in
+Nuremberg. It was up there somewhere that they invented type, a lazy
+scheme to do away with writing. They are a thrifty lot--those
+Germans--they give me my fare and a penny more, just a single penny,
+and no matter how much I have talked and pointed out the wonderful
+sights, and imparted useful information, known to me alone--only one
+penny extra--think of it!
+
+Yes, printing was first done at Mayence by a German, Gutenberg, about
+sixty years ago. One of Gutenberg's workmen went up to Nuremberg and
+taught others how to design and cast type. This man, Alberto Durer,
+helped them, designing the initials and making their title-pages by
+cutting the design on a wood block, then covering this block with ink,
+laying a sheet of paper upon it, placing it in a press, and then when
+the paper is lifted off it looks exactly like the original drawing. In
+fact, most people couldn't tell the difference, and here you can print
+thousands of them from the one block.
+
+Bellini makes drawings for title-pages and initials for Aldus and
+Nicholas Jenson. Venice is the greatest printing place in the world,
+and yet the business began here only thirty years ago. The first book
+printed here was in Fourteen Hundred Sixty-nine, by John of Speyer.
+There are two hundred licensed printing-presses here, and it takes
+usually four men to a press--two to set the type and get things ready,
+and two to run the press. This does not count, of course, the men who
+write the books, and those who make the type and cut the blocks from
+which they print the pictures for the illustrations. At first, you
+know, the books they printed in Venice had no title-pages, initials or
+illustrations. My father was a printer and he remembers when the first
+large initials were printed--before that the spaces were left blank and
+the books were sent out to the monasteries to be completed by hand.
+
+Gian and Gentile had a good deal to do about cutting the first blocks
+for initials--they got the idea, I think, from Nuremberg. And now there
+are Dutchmen down here from Amsterdam learning how to print books and
+paint pictures. Several of them are in Gian's studio, I hear--every
+once in a while I get them for a trip to the Lido or to Murano.
+
+Gentile Bellini is his brother and looks very much like him. The Grand
+Turk at Constantinople came here once and saw Gian Bellini at work in
+the Great Hall. He had never seen a good picture before and was
+amazed. He wanted the Senate to sell Gian to him, thinking he was a
+slave. They humored the Pagan by hiring Gentile Bellini to go instead,
+loaning him out for two years, so to speak.
+
+Gentile went, and the Sultan, who never allowed any one to stand
+before him, all having to grovel in the dirt, treated Gentile as an
+equal. Gentile even taught the old rogue to draw a little, and they
+say the painter had a key to every room in the palace, and was treated
+like a prince.
+
+Well, they got along all right, until one day Gentile drew the picture
+of the head of John the Baptist on a charger.
+
+"A man's head doesn't look like that when it is cut off," said the
+Grand Turk contemptuously. Gentile had forgotten that the Turk was on
+familiar ground.
+
+"Perhaps the Light of the Sun knows more about painting than I do!"
+said Gentile, as he kept right on at his work.
+
+"I may not know much about painting, but I'm no fool in some other
+things I might name," was the reply.
+
+The Sultan clapped his hands three times: two slaves appeared from
+opposite doors. One was a little ahead of the other, and as this one
+approached, the Sultan with a single swing of the snickersnee snipped
+off his head. This teaches us that obedience to our superiors is its
+own reward. But the lesson was wholly lost on Gentile Bellini, for he
+did not even remain to examine the severed head for art's sake. The
+thought that it might be his turn next was supreme, and he leaped
+through a window, taking the sash with him. Making his way to the
+docks he found a sailing vessel loading with fruit, bound for Venice.
+A small purse of gold made the matter easy: the captain of the boat
+secreted him, and in four days he was safely back in Saint Mark's
+giving thanks to God for his deliverance.
+
+No, I didn't say Gian was a rogue--I only told you what others say. I
+am only a poor gondolier--why should I trouble myself about what great
+folks do? I simply tell you what I hear--it may be so, and it may not.
+God knows! There is that Pascale Salvini--he has a rival studio--and
+when that Genoese, Christoforo Colombo, was here and made his
+stopping-place at Bellini's studio, Pascale told every one that
+Colombo was a lunatic, and Bellini another, for encouraging him to
+show his foolish maps and charts. Now, they do say that Colombo has
+discovered a new world, and Italians are feeling troubled in
+conscience because they did not fit him out with ships instead of
+forcing him to go to Spain.
+
+No, I didn't say Bellini was a hypocrite--Pascale's pupils say so, and
+once they followed him over to Murano--three barca-loads and my gondola
+beside. You see it was like this: Twice a week just after sundown, we
+used to see Gian Bellini untie his boat from the landing there behind
+the Doge's palace, turn the prow, and beat out for Murano, with no
+companion but that deaf old caretaker. Twice a week, Tuesdays and
+Fridays--always at just the same hour, regardless of the weather--we
+would see the old hunchback light the lamps, and in a few moments the
+Master would appear, tuck up his black robe, step into the boat, take
+the oar and away they would go. It was always to Murano, and always to
+the same landing--one of our gondoliers had followed them several
+times, just out of curiosity.
+
+Finally it came to the ears of Pascale that Gian took this regular
+trip to Murano. "It is a rendezvous," said Pascale. "It is worse than
+that: an orgy among those lacemakers and the rogues of the glassworks.
+Oh, to think that Gian should stoop to such things at his age--his
+pretended asceticism is but a mask--and at his age!"
+
+The Pascale students took it up, and once came in collision with that
+Tiziano of Cadore, who they say broke a boat-hook over the head of one
+of them who had spoken ill of the Master.
+
+But this did not silence the talk, and one dark night, when the air
+was full of flying mist, one of Pascale's students came to me and told
+me that he wanted me to take a party over to Murano. The weather was
+so bad that I refused to go--the wind blew in gusts, sheet lightning
+filled the Eastern sky, and all honest men, but poor belated
+gondoliers, had hied them home.
+
+I refused to go.
+
+Had I not seen Gian the painter go not half an hour before? Well, if
+he could go, others could too.
+
+I refused to go--except for double fare.
+
+He accepted and placed the double fare in silver in my palm. Then he
+gave a whistle and from behind the corners came trooping enough
+swashbuckler students to swamp my gondola. I let in just enough to
+fill the seats and pushed off, leaving several standing on the stone
+steps cursing me and everything and everybody.
+
+As my boat slid away in the fog and headed on our course, I glanced
+back and saw the three barca-loads following in my wake.
+
+There was much muffled talk, and orders from some one in charge to
+keep silence. But there was passing of strong drink, and then talk,
+and from it I gathered that these were all students from Pascale's,
+out on one of those student carousals, intent on heaven knows what! It
+was none of my business.
+
+We shipped considerable water, and some of the students were down on
+their knees praying and bailing, bailing and praying.
+
+At last we reached the Murano landing. All got out, the barcas tied
+up, and I tied up, too, determined to see what was doing. The strong
+drink was passed, and a low, heavy-set fellow who seemed to be captain
+charged all not to speak, but to follow him and do as he did.
+
+We took a side street where there was little travel and followed
+through the dark and dripping way, fully a half-mile, down there in
+that end of the island called the sailors' broglio, where they say no
+man's life is safe if he has a silver coin or two. There was much
+music in the wine-shops and shouts of mirth and dancing feet on stone
+floors, but the rain had driven every one from the streets.
+
+We came to a long, low, stone building that used to be a theater, but
+was now a dance-hall upstairs and a warehouse below. There were lights
+upstairs and sounds of music. The stairway was dark, but we felt our
+way up and on tiptoe advanced to the big double door, from under which
+the light streamed.
+
+We had received our orders, and when we got to the landing we stood
+there just an instant. "Now we have him--Gian the hypocrite!" whispered
+the stout man in a hoarse breath. We burst in the doors with a whoop
+and a bang. The change from the dark to the light sort of blinded us
+at first. We all supposed that there was a dance in progress of
+course, and the screams from women were just what we expected; but
+when we saw several overturned easels and an old man, half-nude, and
+too scared to move, seated on a model throne, we did not advance into
+the hall as we intended. That one yell we gave was all the noise we
+made. We stood there in a bunch, just inside the door, sort of dazed
+and uncertain. We did not know whether to retreat, or charge on
+through the hall as we had intended. We just stood there like a lot of
+driveling fools.
+
+"Keep right at your work, my good people. Keep right at your work!"
+called a pleasant voice. "I see we have some visitors."
+
+And Gian Bellini came forward. His robe was still tucked up under the
+blue sash, but he had laid aside his black cap, and his tumbled gray
+hair looked like the aureole of a saint. "Keep right at your work," he
+said again, and then came forward and bade us welcome and begged us to
+have seats.
+
+I dared not run away, so I sat down on one of the long seats that were
+ranged around the wall. My companions did the same. There must have
+been fifty easels, all ranged in a semicircle around the old man who
+posed as a model. Several of the easels had been upset, and there was
+much confusion when we entered.
+
+"Just help us to arrange things--that is right, thank you," said Gian
+to the stout man who was captain of our party. To my astonishment the
+stout man was doing just as he was bid, and was pacifying the women
+students and straightening up their easels and stools.
+
+I was interested in watching Gian walking around, helping this one
+with a stroke of his crayon, saying a word to that, smiling and
+nodding to another. I just sat there and stared. These students were
+not regular art students, I could see that plainly. Some were
+children, ragged and barelegged, others were old men who worked in the
+glass-factories, and surely with hands too old and stiff to ever paint
+well. Still others were women and young girls of the town. I rubbed my
+eyes and tried to make it out!
+
+The music we heard I could still hear--it came from the wine-shop
+across the way. I looked around and what do you believe? My companions
+had all gone. They had sneaked out one by one and left me alone.
+
+I watched my chance and when the Master's back was turned I tiptoed
+out, too.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+When I got down on the street I found I had left my cap, but I dared
+not go back after it. I made my way down to the landing, half running,
+and when I got there not a boat was to be seen--the three barcas and my
+gondola were gone.
+
+I thought I could see them, out through the mist, a quarter of a mile
+away. I called aloud, but no answer came back but the hissing wind. I
+was in despair--they were stealing my boat, and if they did not steal
+it, it would surely be wrecked--my all, my precious boat!
+
+I cried and wrung my hands. I prayed! And the howling winds only ran
+shrieking and laughing around the corners of the building.
+
+I saw a glimmering light down the beach at a little landing. I ran to
+it, hoping some gondolier might be found who would row me over to the
+city. There was one boat at the landing and in it a hunchback, sound
+asleep, covered with a canvas. It was Gian Bellini's boat. I shook the
+hunchback into wakefulness and begged him to row me across to the
+city. I yelled into his deaf ears, but he pretended not to understand
+me. Then I showed him the silver coin--the double fare--and tried to
+place it in his hand. But no, he only shook his head.
+
+I ran up the beach, still looking for a boat.
+
+An hour had passed.
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+I got back to the landing just as Gian came down to his boat.
+
+I approached him and explained that I was a poor worker in the
+glass-factory, who had to work all day and half the night, and as I
+lived over in the city and my wife was dying, I must get home. Would
+he allow me to ride with His Highness? "Certainly--with pleasure, with
+pleasure!" he answered, and then pulling something from under his sash
+he said, "Is this your cap, Signor?" I took my cap, but my tongue was
+paralyzed for the moment so I could not thank him.
+
+The wind had died down, the rain had ceased, and from between the
+blue-black clouds the moon shone out. Gian rowed with a strong, fine
+stroke, singing a "Te Deum Laudamus" softly to himself the while.
+
+I lay there and wept, thinking of my boat, my all, my precious boat!
+
+We reached the landing--and there was my boat, safely tied up, not a
+cushion nor a cord missing.
+
+Gian Bellini? He may be a rogue as Pascale Salvini says--God knows! How
+can I tell--I am only a poor gondolier!
+
+              -------------------------------------
+
+So here then endeth the Volume entitled "The Mintage," the same
+being Ten Stories and One More written by Elbert Hubbard. The
+whole done into a printed book by The Roycrofters at their Shop,
+which is in the Village of East Aurora, Erie County, New York
+State, this year of Grace mcmx and from the founding of The
+Roycroft Shop the Sixteenth.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mintage, by Elbert Hubbard
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINTAGE ***
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