On that story I came up stairs. Poor Aunt Eunice! She was the reason I got no salary on the 1st of April. I thought I would warn other women by writing down the story.
That fatal present of mine, in those harmless hourglass parcels, was the ruin of the Confederate navy, army, ordinance, and treasury; and it led to the capture of the poor President, too.
But, Heaven be praised, no one shall say that my office did not do its duty!
THE LOST INVENTOR[4]
BY WALLACE IRWIN
Patriotic fellow-citizens, and did you ever note
How we honor Mr. Fulton, who devised the choo-choo boat?
How we glorify our Edison, who made the world to go
By the bizzy-whizzy magic of the little dynamo?
Yet no spirit-thrilling tribute has been ever heard or seen
For the fellow who invented our Political Machine.
Sure a fine, inventive genius, who has labored long and hard,
Till success has crowned his research, should receive a just reward.
The Machine's a great invention, that's continually clear,
Out of nothing but corruption making millions every year—
Out of muck and filth of cities making dollars neat and clean—
Where's the fellow who invented the Political Machine?
Hail the complex mechanism, full of cranks and wires and wheels,
Fed by graft and loot and patronage, as noiselessly it reels.
Press the button, pull the lever, clickety-click, and set the vogue
For the latest thing in statesmen or the newest kind of rogue.
Who's the man behind the throttle? Who's the Engineer unseen?
"Ask me nothin'! Ask me nothin'!" clicks that wizard, the Machine.