Smoking is a filthy habit, and a big, fat, black cigar advertises that you're straying from the Higher Life afar. I have walked in summer meadows where the sunbeams flashed and broke, and I never saw the horses or the sheep or cattle smoke; I have watched the birds, with wonder, when the world with dew was wet, and I never saw a robin puffing at a cigarette; I have fished in many rivers when the sucker crop was ripe, and I never saw a catfish pulling at a briar pipe. Man's the only living creature that parades this vale of tears, like a blooming traction engine, blowing smoke from mouth and ears. If Dame Nature had intended, when she first invented man, that he'd smoke, she would have built him on a widely diff'rent plan; she'd have fixed him with a damper and a stovepipe and a grate; he'd have had a smoke consumer that was strictly up-to-date. Therefore, let the erring mortal put his noisome pipe in soak--he can always get a new one if he feels he needs a smoke. [Illustration: "_O come, my love, from your bower in haste, let us trim our sails for the ether waste, away, away!_"] _Up-to-Date Serenade_ O come, my love, for the world's at rest, and the sun's asleep in the curtained West, and the night breeze sighs from between the stars, and my air-ship waits by your window bars! We'll sail the sea of the waveless wind, we'll leave the earth and its dross behind, and watch its lights from the cloudy heights--O come, my love, on this best of nights! O come, my love, from your bower in haste, let us trim our sails for the ether waste, away, away, where the weary moan of the workday world is never known; where the only track is the track of wings that the skylark leaves when it soars and sings! So come, my love ere the night is old, and the stars have paled, and the dawn is cold; the ship can't wait for its precious freight, for it's costing a dollar a minute, straight. _The Consumer_ They will tinker with the tariff till the rivers are gone dry, they will wrestle with the subject night and day; they'll be piling up the language when the snow begins to fly, they'll be riddling in the same old weary way. O the grand old windy wonders who adorn the senate floor, till the windup of the world will be on deck; and there's just one thing that's certain, that is sure for ever more; the consumer always gets it in the neck. There is talk of hides and leather, and there's talk of nails and glue, there are weary wads of twaddle on cement; and the man from Buncombe Corners stands and toots his loud bazoo, till his language in the ceiling makes a dent; no one in this martyred country knows how long this will endure, and there isn't any way the flood to check; and there's just one thing about it that is reasonably sure; the consumer always gets it in the neck. _Advice To A Damsel_