“‘An’ whilst he is pluckin’ purple poppies from sweet fancy’s lurid canvas,’ says Chinook Bill softly, ‘we’ll leave our respects to the House o’ Lords an’ depart instant. It’s me who’s pinin’ fer the range.’
“‘The dream o’ avarice no longer disturbs the tranquillity o’ my peace-lovin’ natur’,’ says I. ‘Me fer the sweet alfalfa of the cowland.’
“Thereon, we viewed the mad potations o’ his Nibbs in anxious silence, an’ when he begun to fight invisible cobras an’ pluck bits o’ poetic thought from space we took opportunity by the forelock an’ broke fer sweet freedom, an’ was soon lickin’ time out o’ the landscape. After we’d chucked two days behind us we slowed up fer observation an’ to get our bearin’s by the water shed. Ten more moons an’ we sights Californy Gulf an’ civilization. We sold antique relics an’ old Chippendale furnitchur, with the forbidden books throwed in fer good measure, to a private expedition headed by a Harvard professor. Then we got a full supply o’ the paraphernalia o’ railroad travel, takes forcible possession o’ the rear coach an’ begins a long deferred celebration. It ’ud be trivial to say es how we blowed in to Phoenix, it bein’ said the dust ain’t settled there yet—exceptin’ in the extreme sooburbs o’ that thrivin’ town. But I know we found white man’s whiskey an’ was shucked clean—exceptin’ to our irreproachable character—in a protracted game o’ monte, an’ was chiefly delayed by them indispensable altercations es come up in the course o’ one’s sojourn through them deludin’ hazes an’ prismatic colorin’s o’ a magnificent jag. After we’d drowned the contagion o’ heagernism in our orthidox constitutions we mounts the broncos bought previous to that little escapade an’ hikes fer the range. We follers our noses across the El Pinto country until we struck the Bar Y outfit, implores a ice-bound individgooal es was chef and bottle washer fer a hand-out an’ incident’ly asks the foreman fer a job. We gets both, an’ fer two months pursooes the quiet paths o’ temperance an’ thrift until a worldly maverick by the name o’ O’Hooley drifts into camp an’ tells how he’d struck it rich in the Little Pecan country an’, guided by a impulse of philanthropy, was ridin’ cross territory a-tellin’ o’ his great discovery—. But that’s another story,” said Buck Eye Pete, “an’ it’s me fer a cup o’ Mocha-Java an’ a siesta.”
NAPOLEON
PART VII—NAPOLEON III
By Anna Erwin Woods
The year 1848 came bearing revolution on its wings. Again France cast aside the Bourbon dynasty, and declared for a republic. Once more began the exile of King Louis Philippe; driven from his native land in old age, as in youth.
The man of Boulogne and Strasbourg waited and watched his opportunity. A republican, a great minister, a member of the provisional government declared, “The renown of Napoleon remains as one of those immense souvenirs which extend over the history of a people, and cover it with an eternal splendor. All that is popular in this glory we accept with eagerness; the proscription of his family by the France of to-day would be a shame.” France gave heed to these words and the National Assembly declared: “Article 6 of the law of April 10, 1852, relative to the banishment of the Bonaparte family is abrogated.”
Another republican leader made the following assertion: “The Republic is like the sun. Allow the nephew of the Emperor to approach it, I am sure he will disappear in its beams.” Events proved that it was not the nephew of the emperor who was to disappear. But, in fact, the real antagonist of the republic was not the living nephew—it was the dead emperor himself, the ever-living name—Napoleon. Living or dead, France belonged to him.
After thirty-three years of proscription and exile, Louis Napoleon was elected by his native city of Paris to a seat in the National Assembly.