Argument. A means of persuasion. The agents of argumentation under a democracy, in the order of their potency, are (a) whiskey, (b) beer, (c) cigars, (d) tears.
Axiom. Something that everyone believes. When everyone begins to believe anything it ceases to be true. For example, the notion that the homeliest girl in the party is the safest.
Ballot Box. The altar of democracy. The cult served upon it is the worship of jackals by jackasses.
Brevity. The quality that makes cigarettes, speeches, love affairs and ocean voyages bearable.
Celebrity. One who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn’t know.
Chautauqua. A place in which persons who are not worth talking to listen to that which is not worth hearing.
Christian. One who believes that God notes the fall of a sparrow and is shocked half to death by the fall of a Sunday-school superintendent; one who is willing to serve three Gods, but draws the line at one wife.
Christian Science. The theory that, since the sky rockets following a wallop in the eye are optical delusions, the wallop itself is a delusion and the eye another.
Church. A place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to persons who will never get there.
Civilization. A concerted effort to remedy the blunders and check the practical joking of God.