AN ULTIMATE EXPERIENCE

The author of "Greedy-Creed" was a marvel, and I can safely say, that his undying fame is fait accompli and, also, that he and Karl Marks are gens de meme famille when it comes to jeu de mots.

When this worthy knight of the ink well first broke into print, it was, I am sorry to say, through the pages of the "Argo," a paper of which I am editor, proprietor and main Mogul.

Since the time his tale first appeared in my Journal, I have been so terribly harassed by the reading public that I have been feeling most uncomfortably simular to the immortal hero in a "Piece of string." There is no doubt but what his article was confined strictly to the truth, as he says in a note attached ....... and as my son and I entered the prison yard I was more than delighted upon stepping into the shadow of the gallows, it was in full preparation to receive some

.........

fortunate (or unfortunate) victim of the noose. I am a man that has always made a practice of Poll-parroting ideas of others; still, it is but natural for a man minus intuition or construction to naw incessantly upon dead thoughts.

My opportunity was now at hand to poll-parrot the sensation of a man who waltzes with death at the end of a rope; being unable to delineate my sensations in proper elaboration, for I am only a cankerous radical, and my incapabilities have always kept me shoulder to shoulder with Aesop's fox who sought the grapes; I therefore, will expect your staff to put my article out comme il faut, still, some years ago I put a bunch of words together, myself, and formed them into long mockish sentences that finally took on the appearance of a book. As I said, I was elated to behold the gallows and with an encouraging nudge from my companion, I gave a hop, skip and a jump vaulting the scaffold in a jiffy, then placing my bean through the enticing loop I dispatched myself upon the spot. As I am absolutely mechanical

and am the

possessor of about as much free hand grace that's noticeable on a steam shovel, I wish that you would imagine my predicament and make it into a head-line story

start off with: die, I did not.

self from there on, and obliged.

Sincerily

for your paper;

Then suit
Then suit your-

Cephalic Rock.

(My compliance appears very obvious in the sequel)

Die, I did not. the sudden jerk given to my neck as I shot through the drop, merely proved to be a sensation of a most pleasing nature, and but for the chafing of the rope, the pressure of the knot and the rapid swelling of my optics, I found, that hanging was, after all, an experience not to be forgotten, and too, it is a gift from the State to the people, of the very highest order.

I heard my heart beating with violence --and the veins in my hands and wrists swelled

(NOTE -- CEPHALIC ROCK, IS THE CLUB NAME OF A NOTED RADICAL)

OTHERWISE

KNOWN AS THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

nearly to bursting, my temples throbbed tempestuously. Yet when I say that in spite of all this my sensations were not absolutely intolerable, I will not believed.

There were noises in my ears, first like the tolling of huge bells --- then like the beating of a thousand drums --- then, lastly, like the low, sullen murmurs of the sea. But these noises were far from being disagreeable.

Although, the powers of my mind were confused and distorted, yet 1 was strange to say! --- well aware of such confusion and distortion. I could, with unerring promptitude determine at will in what particulars my sensations were correct --- and in what particulars I wandered from the path. I could even feel with accuracy how far to what very point, such wanderings had misguided me, but still without the power of correcting my deviations. I took besides, at the same time, a wild delight in analyzing my conceptions. Memory, which, of all other faculties, should have first taken its departure, seemed on the contrary to have been endowed with quadru

111

pled power. Each incident of my past life flitted before me like a shadow. There was not a brick in the building where I was born --- not a dogleaf in the primer I had thumbed over when a child not a tree in the forest where I hunted when a youth not a street in the cities I had traversed when a man, that I did not at that time most palpably behold. I could repeat to myself entire lines, passages, chapters, books, from the studies of my earliest days; and while, I dare say, the crowd around me were blind with horror, or aghast with awe, I was alternately with Aeschylus, a demi-god, or with Aristophanes, a frog.

A dreamy delight suddenly took hold upon my spirit, and I imagined that I was filled to the brim with dago red, and that I had just finished feeding upon the Hashish of the old Assassins. But glimpses of pure, unadulterated reason were still caught occasionally by my soul.

By some unusual pressure of the rope against my face, a portion of the cap was shoved away and I found to my astonishment that my mental powers were not altogether distroyed.