“In the scales of God,” declaimed Portia, “charity will outweigh gold, unless Dives and Lazarus have changed places since the last tidings we had of them.”
“For all that,” concluded Tweed, “the only objection I ever found to tainted money was that ‘taint enough! A little thieving is a dangerous thing; graft much or you’ll taste the penitentiary spring. Though Justice is blind, she isn’t deaf, and he who can jingle the most gold usually wins his case. The man who sent me to the island said, ‘I hope to see you in hell some day,’ and I’ve wondered ever since which of us he was doubtful about getting here.”
HOW THE CREATION CENTERED
ABOUT A PETTICOAT: A REVISED
VERSION OF THE FIRST CHAPTER
OF DARWIN AND THE
ASCENT OF MAN.
CHAPTER VIII.
How the Creation Centered about a Petticoat: A Revised Version of the First Chapter of Darwin and the Ascent of Man.
ALL was quiet along the Styx. The river banks were deserted. Cæsar had been called to court to testify against a counterfeiter who had been punching his head, and Charon took advantage of the Roman’s absence to call upon his wife Calpurnia, famed as being the only woman of whom it was said she was above suspicion. Charon’s craft, which to-day happened to be no more than an ordinary rowboat, was pulled up on the bank. In his haste to depart, the ferryman had even left his oars lying loose in the locks. I was considering the advisability of attempting to row back to Harlem when my attention was diverted by three dogs swimming in the placid waters of the Styx. Sitting astride them with all the ease of a circus clown was a boy whose forehead was branded thus: $——. It was the mark of Cain; therefore this must be the bad boy himself.
As they drew nearer, I discovered that there was only one dog instead of three; it was the many-headed Cerberus. All went well until Cain pulled the dog’s tail. Then the nearest head snapped at the lad so quickly that he disappeared down its throat. Jonah had now arrived on the scene, and enraged at this infringement on his copyright, he caught the canine by its hind legs and holding it aloft, shook it vigorously. Cain dropped out of the centre cavity in the dog’s delta with a lighted stogie between his teeth. He tossed the nicotine nugget to Jonah and bade him take the canine to the pound of Pluto.
“Charge it up to Pa,” the bad boy said airily. Jonah continued to hold out his hand.
“No credit is given in Hell,” he sneered. “You’ve got to cash in all your checks.”
Cain put his hand in the outstretched palm, but instead of the expected gold, he dropped therein the burning Stygian stogie.
Who polluteth his lips with blasphemy? Who imperilleth his parliamentary standing? Who yelleth in Sanskrit and Yiddish? Ask of the boy; he is of age and can speak for himself.