What! you were born, you animated doll, Within the shadow of the Capitol? 'Twas always thought (and Bancroft so assures His trusting readers) it was reared in yours. CALIFORNIAN SUMMER PICTURES THE FOOT-HILL RESORT Assembled in the parlor Of the place of last resort, The smiler and the snarler And the guests of every sort-- The elocution chap With rhetoric on tap; The mimic and the funny dog; The social sponge; the money-hog; Vulgarian and dude; And the prude; The adiposing dame With pimply face aflame; The kitten-playful virgin-- Vergin' on to fifty years; The solemn-looking sturgeon Of a firm of auctioneers; The widower flirtatious; The widow all too gracious; The man with a proboscis and a sepulcher beneath. One assassin picks the banjo, and another picks his teeth. AT ANCHOR The soft asphaltum in the sun; Betrays a tendency to run; Whereas the dog that takes his way Across its course concludes to stay. THE IN-COMING CLIMATE Now o' nights the ocean breeze Makes the patient flinch, For that zephyr bears a sneeze In every cubic inch. Lo! the lively population Chorusing in sternutation A catarrhal acclamation! A LONG-FELT WANT Dimly apparent, through the gloom Of Market-street's opaque simoom, A queue of people, parti-sexed, Awaiting the command of "Next!" A sidewalk booth, a dingy sign: "Teeth dusted nice--five cents a shine." TO THE HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS Wide windy reaches of high stubble field; A long gray road, bordered with dusty pines; A wagon moving in a "cloud by day." Two city sportsmen with a dove between, Breast-high upon a fence and fast asleep-- A solitary dove, the only dove In twenty counties, and it sick, or else It were not there. Two guns that fire as one, With thunder simultaneous and loud; Two shattered human wrecks of blood and bone! And later, in the gloaming, comes a man-- The worthy local coroner is he, Renowned all thereabout, and popular With many a remain. All tenderly Compiling in a game-bag the débris, He glides into the gloom and fades from sight. The dove, cured of its ailment by the shock, Has flown, meantime, on pinions strong and fleet, To die of age in some far foreign land. SLANDER FITCH: "All vices you've exhausted, friend; So all the papers say." PICKERING: "Ah, what vile calumnies are penned!-- 'Tis just the other way." JAMES L. FLOOD As oft it happens in the youth of day That mists obscure the sun's imperfect ray, Who, as he's mounting to the dome's extreme, Smites and dispels them with a steeper beam, So you the vapors that begirt your birth Consumed, and manifested all your worth. But still one early vice obstructs the light And sullies all the visible and bright Display of mind and character. You write. FOUR CANDIDATES FOR SENATOR