HARD LUCK.
It was his sixtieth birthday and in times agone he had fondly anticipated the arrival of that occasion as marking a happy fruition of his talents and a mature mellowing of his energies. Instead, however, he found himself summoned to appear before the public executioner with the family Bible and prove its records false or be humanely extinguished in the interest of modern enlightenment. “This is too hard,” he murmured, “but it would be infamous as well as futile to question the authority of the Good Book, and besides I am too young to die. Though I appreciate theoretically the demands of civilization, as a practical proposition the idea has its limitations.”
It was with difficulty that he was enabled to restrain a tear when he thought of the young wife whom he had taken unto himself just prior to the enactment of the regulation for the removal of the innocuously obsolete, and whom he now felt that he had procured under false pretences. His pessimistic misgivings were accentuated by a picture of her after he had gone to his reward striving for sustenance wherewith to nurture the innocent infant cooing at her breast. But every remedy was exhausted. The President had declined to interpose with as much as a temporary respite, regretting his painful obligation but tactfully reminding him of the majesty of the law, the interests of society and the demands of the strenuous life. In due season he was led face to face with the public chloroformer, who humanely inquired of him if he had aught to observe by way of valedictory. Not anticipating such courteous consideration, he was temporarily abashed, but recovering his dormant speech, feebly but feelingly observed: “Only a single request. When I shall have yielded up and taken flight to that somber realm whence no traveler has as yet returned, spare my modest memory from the obituary paragrapher, who would chronicle the lamented departure from our midst of another consistent church member and well beloved citizen.” Saying which he inhaled deeply and peacefully passed into the big slumber while his fair young wife adopted the proud profession of a laundress and his innocent babe was carefully safe-guarded in a local institution for the homeless progeny of those who had they been permitted to ramble at large would have been “only in the way.”