I am Dismissed

It was a very interesting programme for my further entertainment that Jupiter mapped out on our way back from the links, and I deeply regret that an untoward incident that followed later, for which I was unintentionally responsible, prevented its being carried out.  I was to have been taken off on a cruise on the inland sea, to where the lost island of Atlantis was to be found; a special tournament at ping-pong was to be held in my honor, in which minor planets were to be used instead of balls, and the players were to be drawn from among the Titans, who were retained to perform feats of valor, skill, and strength for Jupiter.  The forge of Vulcan was to be visited, and many of the mysteries of the centre of the earth were to be revealed, and, best of all, Jupiter himself had promised to give me an exhibition of his own skill as a marksman in the hurling of thunder-bolts, and I was to select the objects to be hit! Think of it!  What a chance lay here for a man to be rid of certain things on earth that he did not like!  What a vast amount of ugly American architecture one could be rid of in the twinkling of an eye!  What a lot of enemies and eyesores it was now in my power to have removed by an electrical process availed of in the guise of sport!  I spent an hour on that list of targets, and if only I had been allowed to prolong my stay in the home of the gods, the world itself would have benefited, for I was not altogether personal in my selection of things for Jupiter to aim at.  There was Tammany Hall, for instance, and the Boxers of China—­these led my list.  There were four or five sunlight-destroying, sky-scraping office buildings in New York and elsewhere; nuisances of every kind that I could think of were put down—­the headquarters of the Beef Trust and a few of its sponsors; the editorial offices of the peevish and bilious newspapers, which deny principles and right motives to all save themselves; a regiment of alleged humorists who make jokes about the mother-in-law and other sacred relations of life; an opera-box full of the people who hum every number of Wagner and Verdi through, and keep other people from hearing the singers; row after row of theatre-goers who come in late and trample over the virtuous folk who have arrived punctually; any number of theatrical managers who mistake gloom for amusement; three or four smirking matinee idols, whose talents are measured by the fit of their clothes, the length of their hair, and their ability to spit supernumeraries with a tin sword; cab-drivers who had overcharged me; insolent railway officials; the New York Central Tunnel—­indeed, the completed list stretches on to such proportions that it would require more pages than this book contains to present them in detail.  I even thought of including Hippopopolis in the list, but when I realized that it was entirely owing to his villany that I had enjoyed the delightful privilege of visiting the gods in their own abode, I spared him.  And to think that because of an unintentional error this great opportunity to rid the world, and incidentally myself, of much that is vexatious was wholly lost is a matter of sincere grief to myself.