If you help a busted pilgrim, who's been out of luck a while, if you stake him with a dollar and a stogie and a smile, and you see his haggard features light up with a glow of joy, and you hear him try to murmur that you are a bully boy, then you'll get a lot of pleasure from the life you're leading here; there are better things than boodle in this little whirling sphere. If you write a friendly letter to some fellow far away, who's so weary and so homesick that his hair is turning gray, he will feel a whole lot better, and the cheer-up smile will come, and he'll sail into his duties in a way to make things hum; then you've done a thing to help you when St. Peter calls your name; there are better things than boodle in this little human game. If you see a man a-struggling to regain some ground he's lost, some one who's been up against it, knocked about and tempest tossed, and you turn around and help him to his place with other men, crying shame upon the knockers who would drag him down again, then you've shown that you're a critter of a princely strain of blood; there are better things than boodle on this little ball of mud. _The Famous Four_ John and Peter, and Robert and Paul, what in the world has become of them all? How are they stacking, and where are they gone--Paul and Robert and Peter and John? Paul was a poet, and labored and wrought over his harp, and he kept its strings hot; haunting and sad was his music, though sweet--bards can't be glad when they've nothing to eat. Peter made pictures and painted them well; 'twasn't his fault that they never would sell; 'twasn't his fault that he took a brief ride out to the poorhouse, where later he died. Robert taught school till he died of old age; hard were his labors and scanty his wage; we laid him to rest in a grave on the hill; the county was called on to settle the bill. John was a pitcher, whose curves were immense; he was the pet of the bleachers, and hence he was the owner of riches untold; diamonds and rubies and sapphires and gold. John and Peter and Robert and Paul! Through the long years we've kept cases on all! _Niagara_