“’Well, I got out of there, and I went to some other places.  The next lady was a cousin of General Mahone of Virginia, and wanted four dollars an hour for a back room with a pink motto and a Burnet granite bed in it.  The next one was an aunt of Davy Crockett, and asked eight dollars a day for a room furnished in imitation of the Alamo, with prunes for breakfast and one hour’s conversation with her for dinner.  Another one said she was a descendant of Benedict Arnold on her father’s side and Captain Kidd on the other.

“’She took more after Captain Kidd.

“’She only had one meal and prayers a day, and counted her society worth $100 a week.

“’I found nine widows of Supreme Judges, twelve relicts of Governors and Generals, and twenty-two ruins left by various happy Colonels, Professors, and Majors, who valued their aristocratic worth from $90 to $900 per week, with weak-kneed hash and dried apples on the side.  I admire people of fine descent, but my stomach yearns for pork and beans instead of culture.  Am I not right?’

“‘Your words,’ said the reporter, ’convince me that you have uttered what you have said.’

“’Thanks.  You see how it is.  I am not wealthy; I have only my per diem and my perquisites, and I cannot afford to pay for high lineage and moldy ancestors.  A little corned beef goes further with me than a coronet, and when I am cold a coat of arms does not warm me.’

“’I greatly fear, ’said the reporter, with a playful hiccough, ’that you have run against a high-toned town.  Most all the first-class boarding houses here are run by ladies of the old Southern families, the very first in the land.’

“‘I am now desperate,’ said the Representative, as he chewed a tack awhile, thinking it was a clove.  ’I want to find a boarding house where the proprietress was an orphan found in a livery stable, whose father was a dago from East Austin, and whose grandfather was never placed on the map.  I want a scrubby, ornery, low-down, snuff-dipping, back-woodsy, piebald gang, who never heard of finger bowls or Ward McAllister, but who can get up a mess of hot cornbread and Irish stew at regular market quotations.’

“‘Is there such a place in Austin?’

“The snake reporter sadly shook his head.  ‘I do not know,’ he said, ’but I will shake you for the beer.’

“Ten minutes later the slate in the Blue Ruin saloon bore two additional characters:  10.”

[Illustration:  “Dear me, General, who is that dreadful man?” (cartoon)]

[Illustration:  “Well, I declare, those gentlemen must be brothers.” (cartoon)]

THE PRISONER OF ZEMBLA

      [From The Rolling Stone.]

So the king fell into a furious rage, so that none durst go near him for fear, and he gave out that since the Princess Ostla had disobeyed him there would be a great tourney, and to the knight who should prove himself of the greatest valor he would give the hand of the princess.