"Everybody has put one over on me!" I shrieked. "Everybody! Now I'm going
to put one over on myself!"
[Illustration: "'Everybody has put one over on me!' I shrieked."]
And I lifted my plate of soup and reversed it on my head.
They told me later that I screamed for half an hour before I swooned.
Afterward, my intellect being impaired, instead of being dismissed from
my department, I was promoted to the position which I now hold as
President Emeritus of the Consolidated Art Museums and Zooelogical Gardens
of the City of New York.
I have easy hours, little to do, and twenty ornamental stenographers and
typewriters engaged upon my memoirs which I dictate when I feel like it,
steeped in the aroma of the most inexpensive cigar I can buy at the
Rolling Stone Inn.
There is one typist in particular--but let that pass.
_Vir sapit qui pauca loquitor._
UN PEU D'AMOUR
When I returned to the plateau from my investigation of the crater, I
realized that I had descended the grassy pit as far as any human being
could descend. No living creature could pass that barrier of flame and
vapour. Of that I was convinced.
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