American literature -- Humor; American wit and humor
Now, when Pallas Athene discovered the Greeks would be beaten,
She slid down from the steep of Olympus upon a toboggan.
Sudden she came before crafty Ulysses in guise like a maiden;
Not that she thought to fool him, but since Olympian fashion
Made the form of a woman good form for a goddess' assumption.
She then spoke to him quickly, and said, "O son of Laertes,
Seize thou the ball; I will pass it to thee and trip up the Trojan."
Her replying, slowly re-worded the son of Laertes--
"That will I do, O goddess divine, for he can outrun me."
Then when the ball was in play, she cast thick darkness around it.
Also around Ulysses she poured invisible darkness.
Under this cover, taking the ball he passed down the middle,
Silent and swift, unseen, unnoticed, unblocked, and untackled.
Meanwhile she piled the Greeks and the Trojans in conglomeration,
Much like a tangle of pine-trees where lightning has frequently fallen,
Or like a basket of lobsters and crabs which the provident housewife
Dumps on the kitchen floor and vainly endeavors to count them,
So seemed the legs and the arms and the heads of the twenty-one
players.
Sudden a shout arose, for under the crossbar, Ulysses,
Visible, sat on the ball, quietly making a touch-down;
On the tip of his nose were his thumb and fingers extended,
Curved and vibrating slow in the sign of the blameless Egyptians.
Violent language came to the lips of the helmeted Hector,
Under his breath he murmured a few familiar quotations,
Scraps of Phrygian folk-lore about the kingdom of Hades;
Then he called loud as a trumpet, "I claim foul, Mr. Umpire!"
"Touch-down for Greece," said Hector; "'twixt you and me and the
goal-post
I lost sight of the ball in a very singular manner."
Then they carried the sphere back to the twenty-five yard line,
Prone on the ground lay a Greek, the leather was poised in his
fingers--
Thrice Agamemnon adjusted the sphere with deliberation;
Then he drew back as a ram draws back for deadly encounter.
Then he tripped lightly ahead, and brought his sandal in contact
Right at the point; straight flew the ball right over the crossbar,
While like the cries of pygmies and cranes the race-yell resounded:
"_Breck-ek kek-kek-koax, Anax andron, Agamemnon!_"
THE ECONOMICAL PAIR
BY CAROLYN WELLS
Once on a Time there was a Man and his Wife who had Different Ideas
concerning Family Expenditures.
The Man said: "I am Exceedingly Economical; although I spend Small Sums
here and there for Cigars, Wines, Theater Tickets, and Little Dinners,
yet I do not buy me a Yacht or a Villa at Newport."
But even with these Praiseworthy Principles, it soon Came About that the
Man was Bankrupt.
Whereupon he Reproached his Wife, who Answered his Accusations with
Surprise.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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