The So-called Human Race Part 38

"If only there were some way of keeping them alive for a few days longer!" said Mrs. Skipp. "If one could only stimulate the heart action by injecting strychnine!"

"Or even embalm them," said Abner, sharing his wife's grewsome humor.

"But no; it is impossible to deceive a second-hand bookseller. He seems to know to the minute when a novel is dead, and declines to turn his shop into a literary morgue." The poor man sighed. "If my employers would send me a few volumes of biography, or an encyclopedia, or a set of Shakespeare, we could easily meet the interest on the mortgage."

"I wish, Abner, that I could be of more help to you," said Mrs. Skipp.

"If I could break myself of the habit of glancing at the last chapter of a novel before reviewing it, I could do ever so many more. Angelica is even more thoughtless than I. The poor child declares that some of the stories look so interesting that she forgets her work completely and actually begins to read them. As for Grandpa, he always was a great reader, and consequently has no head at all for reviewing."

"If Harold were a few years older----" mused Abner. "But there, wife, we must not spend in vain repining the scant hours allotted to us for sleep. Perhaps the expressman will bring us some scientific books to-morrow. Quite a number were on Appletree's fall list."

Abner Skipp kissed his wife affectionately, and presently the house was dark and still. Mrs. Skipp, worn out by the day's work, went quickly to sleep; but Abner, haunted by the mortgage, pa.s.sed a restless night.

Several times he fancied he heard a noise in the cellar, as if the expressman were dumping another ton of books into the bin. At last, just before dawn, there came a loud thump, as if a volume of Herbert Spencer's Autobiography had fallen to the floor. Getting out of bed quietly so that his weary wife should not be disturbed, Abner went to the cellar stairway and listened.

A clicking sound was distinctly audible, and a faint light gleamed below.

IV.

Cautiously descending the stair, Abner Skipp came upon so strange a sight that with difficulty he restrained himself from crying out his astonishment. Little Harold was seated before a queer mechanism, which resembled a typewriter, spinning wheel, and adding machine combined, engaged in turning the tons of books around him into reviews, as the miller's daughter spun the straw into gold, in the ancient tale of "Rumpelstiltzkin."

"Child, what does this mean?" cried the bewildered Abner Skipp.

"Father," replied Harold, "I am lifting the mortgage. Not long ago I saw among the advertis.e.m.e.nts in the Sat.u.r.day Home Herald an announcement of a Magic Kit for book reviewers, with a capacity of 300 books per hour.

Fortunately I had enough money in my child's bank to pay the first installment on this wonderful outfit which came to-day. Is it not a marvelous invention, father? Even Grandpa could work it!" Trembling with eagerness Abner Skipp bent over the Magic Kit, while little Harold explained the working of the various parts.

To review a book all that was necessary was to press a few keys, pull a lever or two, and the thing was done. Reviewing by publisher's slip was simplicity itself; the slips were dropped into a hopper, and presently emerged neatly gummed to sheets of copy paper; and if an extract from the book were desired, a page was quickly torn out and fed in with the slip. Reviewing by t.i.tle page was almost as rapid. The operator type-wrote the t.i.tle, author's name, publisher, price, and number of pages, and then pulled certain levers controlling the necessary words and phrases, such as--

"This latest work is not likely to add to the author's reputation"; or--

"The book will appeal chiefly to specialists"; or--

"An excellent tale to while away an idle hour"; or--

"The book is attractively bound and is profusely ill.u.s.trated."

"Father," said little Harold, his face glowing, "to-morrow we will hire a furniture van and take all these books to the city."

"My boy," cried Abner Skipp, folding his little son in his arms, "you are the little fairy in our home. Surely no other could have done this job more neatly or with greater dispatch; and no fairy wand could be more wonder-working than this truly Magic Kit."

A LINE-O'-TYPE OR TWO

_"Fay ce que vouldras."_

TO B. L. T.

(_Quintus Horatius Flaccus loquitur._)

Maecenas sprang from royal line, You spring a Line diurnal.

(Perhaps my joke is drawn too fine For readers of your journal.)

But what I started out to say, Across the gulf of ages, Is that, in our old Roman day, My patron paid me wages.

No barren wreath of fame was mine When Mac approved my stuff, But casks of good Falernian wine, And slaves and gold enough.

And last, to keep the wolf away And guard my age from harm, He gave me in his princely way My little Sabine farm.

But now, forsooth, your merry crew-- _O Tempora! O Mores!_-- What do they ever get from you-- Your Laura, Pan, Dolores?

They fill the Line with verse and wheeze, To them your fame is due.

What do they ever get for these?

Maecenas? Ha! Ha! _You?_

So as I quaff my spectral wine, At ease beside the Styx, Would I contribute to the Line?

Nequaquam! Nunquam! Nix!

Campion.

Our compliments to Old Man Flaccus, whose witty message reminds us to entreat contribs to be patient, as we are snowed under with offerings.

For a week or more we have been trying to horn into the column with some verses of our own composing.

BRIGHT SAYINGS OF MOTHER.

My respected father came to breakfast on New Year's Day remarking that he had treated himself to a present by donning a new pair of suspenders, whereupon mother remarked: "Well braced for the New Year, as it were!"

C. T. S.

After some years of editing stories of events in high society, a gentleman at an adjacent desk believes he has learned the chief duty of a butler. It is to call the police.

"THAT STRAIN AGAIN--IT HAD A DYING SNORT."

Sir: Speaking of soft music and the pearly gates, S. T. Snortum is owner and demonstrator of the music store at St. Peter, Minnesota.

S. W. E.

Warren, O., has acquired a lady barber, and dinged if her name isn't Ethel Gillette.