You say my paper isn't fit for aught but toughs and muckers? That all the fakers come to it when they would fleece the suckers? Your criticism takes the buns! It's surely most surprising! You'll have to see the man who runs the foreign advertising. THIS DISMAL AGE "It is a humdrum world," he said, "in which we now abide! alas! the good old times are dead when brave knights used to ride to war upon their armored steeds; then bloodshed was in style; then men could do heroic deeds, and life was worth the while. If I should go with lance and sword to enemy of mine--to one by whom I've long been bored, and cleave him to the chine, there'd be no plaudits long and loud, no wreaths from ladies pale; the cops would seek me in a crowd, and hustle me to jail. If down the highway I should press, beneath the summer skies, to rescue damsels in distress and wipe their weeping eyes, I'd win no praises from the sports; they'd call me a galoot; I'd have to answer in the courts to breach-of-promise suit. Adventure is a thing that's dead, we've reached a low estate, and I was born, alas!" he said, "five hundred years too late." He took the morning paper then, which reeked with thrilling things, with tales of fighting modern men; the strife of money kings; the eager, busy, human streams throughout this mundane hive; the struggle of the baseball teams, which for the pennant strive; the polar hero and his sled; the race of motor cars; the flight of aernauts o'erhead, outlined against the stars. "It is a humdrum age," he sighed, "of avarice the fruit. Upon a steed I'd like to ride, and wear a cast iron suit, and live as lived the knights of old, the heroes of romance; I'd like to carry spurs of gold and wield a sword and lance; but in this drear and pallid age, from Denver to Des Moines, there's naught to stir a noble rage--there's nothing counts but coin!" BOOST THINGS Don't sit supinely on your roost, but come along and help us boost, for better things of every kind, and leave your kicking clothes behind. O let us boost for better streets, and softer beds, and longer sheets; for smoother lawns and better lights, and shorter-winded blatherskites; for finer homes, and larger trees, for bats and boots and bumble bees; for shorter hours and longer pay, and fewer thistles in our hay, for better grub, and bigger pies, for two more moons to light the skies. And let the wolves of war be loosed on every man who doesn't boost! THE ADVENTURER He had braved the hungry ocean when the same was in commotion, he had floated on the wreckage of his tempest-shattered bark; he had flirted in deep waters with the merman's wives and daughters, he had scrapped through seven sessions with a large man-eating shark.