A Book Without A Title Part 2

"This," replied Time, "is your Future."

XVI

SIC Pa.s.sIM

"For what qualities in a man," asked the youth, "does a woman most ardently love him?"

"For those qualities in him," replied the old tutor, "which his mother most ardently hates."

XVII

THE SEVERER SENTENCE

He had done a great wrong to a good woman, and the congress of the G.o.ds sat upon his punishment.

"Be it decreed by us," spoke the G.o.d at the far end of the table, "that he be compelled to walk, with the pace of a tortoise, through h.e.l.l."

"Be it decreed rather by us," spoke the G.o.d at the head of the table--and all the G.o.ds, hearing him, nodded grimly their approval--"that he be compelled to race, with the pace of a hare, through Paradise."

XVIII

RACHE

"I hate my enemy with a hate as bitter as the hate he bears me, and I would do that to him that would for all time weaken both him and his power against me," muttered the man.

"That is easy," whispered Revenge in the man's ear. "Flatter him extravagantly for the qualities he knows he doesn't possess."

XIX

SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS

An anarchist threw a bomb at the equipage of a king, and missed him.

A dancer threw a kiss to his box....

XX

RESPECT

The mistress of the man on trial for bigamy was in tears.

"What is it, dear?" the man asked of her, tenderly.

The woman's frame shook under her sobs. "You don't respect me," she wailed. "Because if you did, you'd marry me."

XXI

TEMPERAMENT

The rage of the artiste knew no bounds. That she should be thus annoyed just before her appearance in the great scene! She stamped about her dressing-room; she threw her arms heavenward; she brushed the vase of roses from her table; she slapped her maid for venturing at such a moment to speak to her; she sank exhausted into an armchair, a bottle of salts pressed to her nostril.

It was full fifteen minutes before she recovered.

Then she went out upon the stage and began her famous interpretation of the great scene in which she chloroforms the detective, breaks open the safe, shoots the policeman who attempts to handcuff her, smashes the gla.s.s in the window with the piano stool and makes her getaway by sliding down the railing of the fire-escape.

XXII

IMMORTALITY

The little son of the reverend man of G.o.d stood at his father's knee and bade him speak to him of immortality.

And the reverend man of G.o.d, his father, spoke to him of immortality, eloquently, impressively, convincingly.

But what he spoke to him of immortality we need not here repeat, for the while he spoke out of the romantic eloquence of his heart, his matter-of-fact mind kept incorrigibly whispering to him that immortality is the theory that life is a rough ocean voyage and the soul a club breakfast.

XXIII