now, suppose that Mr. Carnegie could engage _him_ and Joe Gans to
go about assisting in the distribution of free libraries? Do you
suppose any town would have had the hardihood to refuse one? That
caliphalous combination would cause two libraries to grow where
there had been only one set of E. P. Roe's works before.

But, as I said, the money-caliphs are handicapped. They have the
idea that earth has no sorrow that dough cannot heal; and they rely
upon it solely. Al Raschid administered justice, rewarding the
deserving, and punished whomsoever he disliked on the spot. He was
the originator of the short-story contest. Whenever he succoured any
chance pick-up in the bazaars he always made the succouree tell the
sad story of his life. If the narrative lacked construction, style,
and _esprit_ he commanded his vizier to dole him out a couple
of thousand ten-dollar notes of the First National Bank of the
Bosphorus, or else gave him a soft job as Keeper of the Bird
Seed for the Bulbuls in the Imperial Gardens. If the story was a
cracker-jack, he had Mesrour, the executioner, whack off his head.
The report that Haroun Al Raschid is yet alive and is editing
the magazine that your grandmother used to subscribe for lacks
confirmation.

And now follows the Story of the Millionaire, the Inefficacious
Increment, and the Babes Drawn from the Wood.

Young Howard Pilkins, the millionaire, got his money
ornithologically. He was a shrewd judge of storks, and got in on
the ground floor at the residence of his immediate ancestors,
the Pilkins Brewing Company. For his mother was a partner in
the business. Finally old man Pilkins died from a torpid liver,