  "Ods bodikins!" exclaimed Swearword the Saxon, wiping his mailed brow with his iron hand, "a fair morn withal! Methinks twert lithlier to rest me in yon glade than to foray me forth in yon fray! Twert it not?" But there happened to be a real Anglo-Saxon standing by. "Where in heaven's name," he said in sudden passion, "did you get that line of English?" "Churl!" said Swearword, "it is Anglo-Saxon." "You're a liar!" shouted the Saxon, "it is not. It is Harvard College, Sophomore Year, Option No. 6." Swearword, now in like fury, threw aside his hauberk, his baldrick, and his needlework on the grass. "Lay on!" said Swearword. "Have at you!" cried the Saxon. They laid on and had at one another. Swearword was killed. Thus luckily the whole story was cut off on the first page and ended. (III) A CONDENSED INTERMINABLE NOVELFROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE OR A THOUSAND PAGES FOR A DOLLAR NOTE.-This story originally contained two hundred and fifty thousand words. But by a marvellous feat of condensation it is reduced, without the slightest loss, to a hundred and six words. (I) Edward Endless lived during his youth in Maine, in New Hampshire, in Vermont, in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, in Connecticut. (II) Then the lure of the city lured him. His fate took him to New York, to Chicago, and to Philadelphia. In Chicago he lived, in a boarding-house on Lasalle Avenue, then he boarded— in a living-house on Michigan Avenue. In New York he had a room in an eating-house on Forty-first Street, and then— ate in a rooming-house on Forty-second Street. In Philadelphia he used to sleep on Chestnut Street, and then— slept on Maple Street. During all this time women were calling to him. He knew and came to be friends with— Margaret Jones, Elizabeth Smith, Arabella Thompson, Jane Williams, Maud Taylor. And he also got to know pretty well, Louise Quelquechose, Antoinette Alphabetic, Estelle Etcetera. And during this same time Art began to call him— Pictures began to appeal to him. Statues beckoned to him. Music maddened him, and any form of Recitation or Elocution drove him beside himself. (III) Then, one day, he married Margaret Jones. As soon as he had married her He was disillusioned. He now hated her. Then he lived with Elizabeth Smith— He had no sooner sat down with her than— He hated her. Half mad, he took his things over to Arabella Thompson's flat to live with her. The moment she opened the door of the apartment, he loathed her. He saw her as she was. Driven sane with despair, he then— (Our staff here cut the story off. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages after this. They show Edward Endless grappling in the fight for clean politics. The last hundred pages deal with religion. Edward finds it after a big fight. But no one reads these pages. There are no women in them. Our staff cut them out and merely show at the end— Edward Purified— Uplifted— Transluted. The whole story is perhaps the biggest thing ever done on this continent. Perhaps!)
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