They never puzzle me with Greek,
Nor drive me mad with Ibsen;
Yet over forms as fair as Eve's
They wear the gowns of Gibson.




THE DYING GAG

BY JAMES L. FORD


There was an affecting scene on the stage of a New York theater the
other night--a scene invisible to the audience and not down on the
bills, but one far more touching and pathetic than anything enacted
before the footlights that night, although it was a minstrel company
that gave the entertainment.

It was a wild, blustering night, and the wind howled mournfully around
the street corners, blinding the pedestrians with the clouds of dust
that it caught up from the gutters and hurled into their faces.

Old man Sweeny, the stage doorkeeper, dozing in his little glazed box,
was awakened by a sudden gust that banged the stage door and then went
howling along the corridor, almost extinguishing the gas-jets and making
the minstrels shiver in their dressing-rooms.

"What! You here to-night!" exclaimed old man Sweeny, as a frail figure,
muffled up in a huge ulster, staggered through the doorway and stood