"'Boston. To-day.
"'At ten-thirty this morning Rudolph Oscar Grabbitall, the millionaire stone-breaker, read the startling news that a foreign Count had just landed in New York. His suffering was pathetic. His daughter, Gasolene Panatella, who will inherit $19,000,000, mostly in bonds, stocks and newspaper talk, was in the dental parlor five blocks away from home when the blow fell. Calling his household about him, Mr. Grabbitall rushed into the dental parlor, beat the dentist down with his bill, dragged Gasolene Panatella home and locked her up in the rear cupboard of the spare room on the second floor of the mansion. Her teeth suffered somewhat, but, thank Heaven! her money will remain in this country. The community breathes easier, but all the incoming trains are being watched.'
"Are you wise, John, to what the panhandling nobility of Europe are doing to our dear United States?
"They are putting all our millionaires on the fritz, that's what they're doing."
Hep's goat in the stretch, under wraps.
"Le'me tell you something, John; it will soon come to pass that the heiress will have to be locked up in the safe deposit vaults with papa's bank book. Here is an item from one of our most prominent newspapers. Get this, John:
"'Long Island City. Now.
"'Pinchem Shortface, the millionaire who made a fortune by inventing a way to open clams by steam, has determined that no foreign Count will marry his daughter, Sudsetta. She will inherit about $193,000,000, about $18 of which is loose enough to spend. The unhappy father is building a spite fence around his mansion, which will be about twenty-two feet high, and all the unmarried millionaires without daughters, to speak of, will contribute broken champagne bottles to put on top of the fence. If the Count gets Sudsetta he is more of a sparrow than her father thinks he is.'
"It's pitiful, John, that's what it is, pitiful! All over the country rich men are dropping their beloved daughters in the cyclone cellars and hiding mamma's stocking with the money in it out in the hay loft.