Proofreading corrections

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@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
 			<p>Goree watched this solemn equipage, as it drove to his door, with only faint interest; but when the lank driver wrapped the reins about his whip, awkwardly descended, and stepped into the office, he rose unsteadily to receive him, recognizing Pike Garvey, the new, the transformed, the recently civilized.</p>
 			<p>The mountaineer took the chair Goree offered him. They who cast doubts upon Garvey’s soundness of mind had a strong witness in the man’s countenance. His face was too long, a dull saffron in hue, and immobile as a statue’s. Pale-blue, unwinking round eyes without lashes added to the singularity of his gruesome visage. Goree was at a loss to account for the visit.</p>
 			<p>“Everything all right at Laurel, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey?” he inquired.</p>
-			<p>“Everything all right, sir, and mighty pleased is Missis Garvey and me with the property. Missis Garvey likes yo’ old place, and she likes the neighbourhood. Society is what she ‘lows she wants, and she is gettin’ of it. The Rogerses, the Hapgoods, the Pratts and the Troys hev been to see Missis Garvey, and she hev et meals to most of thar houses. The best folks hev axed her to differ’nt kinds of doin’s. I cyan’t say, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree, that sech things suits me⁠—fur me, give me them thar.” Garvey’s huge, yellow-gloved hand flourished in the direction of the mountains. “That’s whar I b’long, ‘mongst the wild honey bees and the b’ars. But that ain’t what I come fur to say, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree. Thar’s somethin’ you got what me and Missis Garvey wants to buy.”</p>
+			<p>“Everything all right, sir, and mighty pleased is Missis Garvey and me with the property. Missis Garvey likes yo’ old place, and she likes the neighbourhood. Society is what she ’lows she wants, and she is gettin’ of it. The Rogerses, the Hapgoods, the Pratts and the Troys hev been to see Missis Garvey, and she hev et meals to most of thar houses. The best folks hev axed her to differ’nt kinds of doin’s. I cyan’t say, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree, that sech things suits me⁠—fur me, give me them thar.” Garvey’s huge, yellow-gloved hand flourished in the direction of the mountains. “That’s whar I b’long, ‘mongst the wild honey bees and the b’ars. But that ain’t what I come fur to say, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree. Thar’s somethin’ you got what me and Missis Garvey wants to buy.”</p>
 			<p>“Buy!” echoed Goree. “From me?” Then he laughed harshly. “I reckon you are mistaken about that. I reckon you are mistaken about that. I sold out to you, as you yourself expressed it, ‘lock, stock and barrel.’ There isn’t even a ramrod left to sell.”</p>
 			<p>“You’ve got it; and we ‘uns want it. ‘Take the money,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy it fa’r and squar’.’ ”</p>
 			<p>Goree shook his head. “The cupboard’s bare,” he said.</p>
@@ -37,7 +37,7 @@
 			<p>Goree frowned ominously. To speak of his feud to a feudist is a serious breach of the mountain etiquette. The man from “back yan’ ” knew it as well as the lawyer did.</p>
 			<p>“Na offense,” he went on “but purely in the way of business. Missis Garvey hev studied all about feuds. Most of the quality folks in the mountains hev ’em. The Settles and the Goforths, the Rankins and the Boyds, the Silers and the Galloways, hev all been cyarin’ on feuds f’om twenty to a hundred year. The last man to drap was when yo’ uncle, Jedge Paisley Goree, ‘journed co’t and shot Len Coltrane f’om the bench. Missis Garvey and me, we come f’om the po’ white trash. Nobody wouldn’t pick a feud with we ‘uns, no mo’n with a fam’ly of tree-toads. Quality people everywhar, says Missis Garvey, has feuds. We ‘uns ain’t quality, but we’re buyin’ into it as fur as we can. ‘Take the money, then,’ says Missis Garvey, ‘and buy <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree’s feud, fa’r and squar’.’ ”</p>
 			<p>The squirrel hunter straightened a leg half across the room, drew a roll of bills from his pocket, and threw them on the table.</p>
-			<p>“Thar’s two hundred dollars, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree; what you would call a fa’r price for a feud that’s been ‘lowed to run down like yourn hev. Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, and you’d make mighty po’ killin’. I’ll take it off yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality. Thar’s the money.”</p>
+			<p>“Thar’s two hundred dollars, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goree; what you would call a fa’r price for a feud that’s been ’ßlowed to run down like yourn hev. Thar’s only you left to cyar’ on yo’ side of it, and you’d make mighty po’ killin’. I’ll take it off yo’ hands, and it’ll set me and Missis Garvey up among the quality. Thar’s the money.”</p>
 			<p>The little roll of currency on the table slowly untwisted itself, writhing and jumping as its folds relaxed. In the silence that followed Garvey’s last speech the rattling of the poker chips in the courthouse could be plainly heard. Goree knew that the sheriff had just won a pot, for the subdued whoop with which he always greeted a victory floated across the square upon the crinkly heat waves. Beads of moisture stood on Goree’s brow. Stooping, he drew the wicker-covered demijohn from under the table, and filled a tumbler from it.</p>
 			<p>“A little corn liquor, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey? Of course you are joking about⁠—what you spoke of? Opens quite a new market, doesn’t it? Feuds. Prime, two-fifty to three. Feuds, slightly damaged⁠—two hundred, I believe you said, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Garvey?”</p>
 			<p>Goree laughed self-consciously.</p>

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@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 			<p>Bill Longley was leaning his lengthy, slowly moving frame back in his swivel chair. His hands were clasped behind his head, and he turned a little to look the examiner in the face. The examiner was surprised to see a smile creep about the rugged mouth of the banker, and a kindly twinkle in his light-blue eyes. If he saw the seriousness of the affair, it did not show in his countenance.</p>
 			<p>“Of course, you don’t know Tom Merwin,” said Longley, almost genially. “Yes, I know about that loan. It hasn’t any security except Tom Merwin’s word. Somehow, I’ve always found that when a man’s word is good it’s the best security there is. Oh, yes, I know the Government doesn’t think so. I guess I’ll see Tom about that note.”</p>
 			<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Todd’s dyspepsia seemed to grow suddenly worse. He looked at the chaparral banker through his double-magnifying glasses in amazement.</p>
-			<p>“You see,” said Longley, easily explaining the thing away, “Tom heard of 2000 head of two-year-olds down near Rocky Ford on the Rio Grande that could be had for $8 a head. I reckon ’twas one of old Leandro Garcia’s outfits that he had smuggled over, and he wanted to make a quick turn on ’em. Those cattle are worth $15 on the hoof in Kansas City. Tom knew it and I knew it. He had $6,000, and I let him have the $10,000 to make the deal with. His brother Ed took ’em on to market three weeks ago. He ought to be back ‘most any day now with the money. When he comes Tom’ll pay that note.”</p>
+			<p>“You see,” said Longley, easily explaining the thing away, “Tom heard of 2000 head of two-year-olds down near Rocky Ford on the Rio Grande that could be had for $8 a head. I reckon ’twas one of old Leandro Garcia’s outfits that he had smuggled over, and he wanted to make a quick turn on ’em. Those cattle are worth $15 on the hoof in Kansas City. Tom knew it and I knew it. He had $6,000, and I let him have the $10,000 to make the deal with. His brother Ed took ’em on to market three weeks ago. He ought to be back ’most any day now with the money. When he comes Tom’ll pay that note.”</p>
 			<p>The bank examiner was shocked. It was, perhaps, his duty to step out to the telegraph office and wire the situation to the Comptroller. But he did not. He talked pointedly and effectively to Longley for three minutes. He succeeded in making the banker understand that he stood upon the border of a catastrophe. And then he offered a tiny loophole of escape.</p>
 			<p>“I am going to Hilldale’s tonight,” he told Longley, “to examine a bank there. I will pass through Chaparosa on my way back. At twelve o’clock tomorrow I shall call at this bank. If this loan has been cleared out of the way by that time it will not be mentioned in my report. If not⁠—I will have to do my duty.”</p>
 			<p>With that the examiner bowed and departed.</p>

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@@ -13,11 +13,11 @@
 			<p>“What have you done?” asked the officer.</p>
 			<p>“I’m a miserable, low-down, lying, good-for-nothing, slandering, drunken, villainous, sacrilegious galoot, and I’m not fit to die. You might ask the jailer, also, to bring little boys in to look at me through the bars, while I gnash my teeth and curse in demoniac rage.”</p>
 			<p>“We can’t put you in jail unless you have committed some offense. Can’t you bring some more specific charge against yourself?”</p>
-			<p>“No, I just want to give myself up on general principles. You see, I went to hear Sam Jones<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-2" id="noteref-2" epub:type="noteref">2</a> last night, and he saw me in the crowd and diagnosed my case to a T. Up to that time I thought I was a four-horse team with a yellow dog under the wagon, but Sam took the negative side and won. I’m a danged old sore-eyed hound dog; I wouldn’t mind if you kicked me a few times before you locked me up, and sent my wife word that the old villain that has been abusin’ her for twenty years has met his deserts.”</p>
+			<p>“No, I just want to give myself up on general principles. You see, I went to hear Sam Jones last night, and he saw me in the crowd and diagnosed my case to a T. Up to that time I thought I was a four-horse team with a yellow dog under the wagon, but Sam took the negative side and won. I’m a danged old sore-eyed hound dog; I wouldn’t mind if you kicked me a few times before you locked me up, and sent my wife word that the old villain that has been abusin’ her for twenty years has met his deserts.”</p>
 			<p>“Aw, come now,” said the officer, “I don’t believe you are as bad as you think you are. You don’t know that Sam Jones was talking about you at all. It might have been somebody else he was hitting. Brace up and don’t let it worry you.”</p>
-			<p>Lemme see, said the weary-looking man reflectively. “Come to think of it there was one of my neighbors sitting right behind me who is the meanest man in Houston. He is a mangy pup, and no mistake. He beats his wife and has refused to loan me three dollars five different times. What Sam said just fits his case exactly. If I thought now—”</p>
+			<p>“Lemme see,” said the weary-looking man reflectively. “Come to think of it there was one of my neighbors sitting right behind me who is the meanest man in Houston. He is a mangy pup, and no mistake. He beats his wife and has refused to loan me three dollars five different times. What Sam said just fits his case exactly. If I thought now—”</p>
 			<p>“That’s the way to look at it,” said the officer. “The chances are Sam wasn’t thinking about you at all.”</p>
-			<p>Durned if I believe he was, now I remember about that neighbor of mine,” said the penitent, beginning to brighten up. “You don’t know what a weight you’ve taken off my mind. I was just feeling like I was one of the worst sinners in the world. I’ll bet any man ten dollars he was talking right straight at that miserable, contemptible scalawag that sat right behind me. Say, come on and let’s go out and take somethin’, will you?”</p>
+			<p>“Durned if I believe he was, now I remember about that neighbor of mine,” said the penitent, beginning to brighten up. “You don’t know what a weight you’ve taken off my mind. I was just feeling like I was one of the worst sinners in the world. I’ll bet any man ten dollars he was talking right straight at that miserable, contemptible scalawag that sat right behind me. Say, come on and let’s go out and take somethin’, will you?”</p>
 			<p>The officer declined and the weary-looking man ran his finger down his neck and pulled his collar up into sight and said:</p>
 			<p>“I’ll never forget your kindness, sir, in helping me out of this worry. It has made me feel bad all day. I am going out to the racetrack now, and take the field against the favorite for a few plunks. Good day, I shall always remember your kindness.”</p>
 		</section>

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@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
 			<p>“I hardly know,” said the lady, hesitatingly. “I suppose so.” And then, suddenly drawn by the sympathetic look of the other, she poured forth the story of her need.</p>
 			<p>It was a story so common that the public has come to look at its monotony instead of its pity. The old tale of an unhappy married life⁠—made so by a brutal, conscienceless husband, a robber, a spendthrift, a moral coward and a bully, who failed to provide even the means of the barest existence. Yes, he had come down in the scale so low as to strike her. It happened only the day before⁠—there was the bruise on one temple⁠—she had offended his highness by asking for a little money to live on. And yet she must needs, womanlike, append a plea for her tyrant⁠—he was drinking; he had rarely abused her thus when sober.</p>
 			<p>“I thought,” mourned this pale sister of sorrow, “that maybe the state might be willing to give me some relief. I’ve heard of such things being done for the families of old settlers. I’ve heard tell that the state used to give land to the men who fought for it against Mexico, and settled up the country, and helped drive out the Indians. My father did all of that, and he never received anything. He never would take it. I thought the governor would be the one to see, and that’s why I came. If father was entitled to anything, they might let it come to me.”</p>
-			<p>“It’s possible, ma’am,” said Standifer, “that such might be the case. But ‘most all the veterans and settlers got their land certificates issued, and located long ago. Still, we can look that up in the land office, and be sure. Your father’s name, now, was⁠—”</p>
+			<p>“It’s possible, ma’am,” said Standifer, “that such might be the case. But ’most all the veterans and settlers got their land certificates issued, and located long ago. Still, we can look that up in the land office, and be sure. Your father’s name, now, was⁠—”</p>
 			<p>“Amos Colvin, sir.”</p>
 			<p>“Good Lord!” exclaimed Standifer, rising and unbuttoning his tight coat, excitedly. “Are you Amos Colvin’s daughter? Why, ma’am, Amos Colvin and me were thicker than two hoss thieves for more than ten years! We fought Kiowas, drove cattle, and rangered side by side nearly all over Texas. I remember seeing you once before, now. You were a kid, about seven, a-riding a little yellow pony up and down. Amos and me stopped at your home for a little grub when we were trailing that band of Mexican cattle thieves down through Karnes and Bee. Great tarantulas! and you’re Amos Colvin’s little girl! Did you ever hear your father mention Luke Standifer⁠—just kind of casually⁠—as if he’d met me once or twice?”</p>
 			<p>A little pale smile flitted across the lady’s white face.</p>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="a-disagreement" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">A Disagreement</h2>
-			<p>Dat <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bergman, vot run de obera house, not dread me right,” said a Houston citizen. “Ven I go dere und vant ein dicket to see dot ‘Schpider und dot Vly’ gompany de oder night, I asg him dot he let me in mit half brice, for I was teaf py von ear, and can not but one half of dot performance hear; und he dell me I should bay double brice, as it vould dake me dwice as long to hear de berformance as anypody else.”</p>
+			<p>“Dat <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Bergman, vot run de obera house, not dread me right,” said a Houston citizen. “Ven I go dere und vant ein dicket to see dot ‘Schpider und dot Vly’ gompany de oder night, I asg him dot he let me in mit half brice, for I was teaf py von ear, and can not but one half of dot performance hear; und he dell me I should bay double brice, as it vould dake me dwice as long to hear de berformance as anypody else.”</p>
 		</section>
 	</body>
 </html>

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@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 		<section id="a-municipal-report" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<header>
 				<h2 epub:type="title">A Municipal Report</h2>
-				<blockquote epub:type="epigraph poem">
+				<blockquote epub:type="epigraph z3998:poem">
 					<p>
 						<span>The cities are full of pride,</span>
 						<br/>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="a-narrow-escape" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">A Narrow Escape</h2>
-			<p>Meek-looking man, with one eye and a timid, shuffling gait, entered a Houston saloon while no one was in except the bartender, and said:</p>
+			<p>A meek-looking man, with one eye and a timid, shuffling gait, entered a Houston saloon while no one was in except the bartender, and said:</p>
 			<p>“Excuse me, sir, but would you permit me to step behind the bar for just a moment? You can keep your eye on me. There is something there I wanted to look at.”</p>
 			<p>The bartender was not busy, and humored him through curiosity.</p>
 			<p>The meek-looking man stepped around and toward the shelf back of the bar.</p>

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@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@
 			<p>“Two weeks afterward O’Connor and me took a steamer for the small, green, doomed country. We were three weeks on the trip. O’Connor said he had his plans all figured out in advance; but being the commanding general, it consorted with his dignity to keep the details concealed from his army and cabinet, commonly known as William T. Bowers. Three dollars a day was the price for which I joined the cause of liberating an undiscovered country from the ills that threatened or sustained it. Every Saturday night on the steamer I stood in line at parade rest, and O’Connor handed ever the twenty-one dollars.</p>
 			<p>“The town we landed at was named Guayaquerita, so they told me. ‘Not for me,’ says I. ‘It’ll be little old Hilldale or Tompkinsville or Cherry Tree Corners when I speak of it. It’s a clear case where Spelling Reform ought to butt in and disenvowel it.’</p>
 			<p>“But the town looked fine from the bay when we sailed in. It was white, with green ruching, and lace ruffles on the skirt when the surf slashed up on the sand. It looked as tropical and dolce far ultra as the pictures of Lake Ronkonkoma in the brochure of the passenger department of the Long Island Railroad.</p>
-			<p>“We went through the quarantine and customhouse indignities; and then O’Connor leads me to a ‘dobe house on a street called ‘The Avenue of the Dolorous Butterflies of the Individual and Collective Saints.’ Ten feet wide it was, and knee-deep in alfalfa and cigar stumps.</p>
+			<p>“We went through the quarantine and customhouse indignities; and then O’Connor leads me to a ’dobe house on a street called ‘The Avenue of the Dolorous Butterflies of the Individual and Collective Saints.’ Ten feet wide it was, and knee-deep in alfalfa and cigar stumps.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Hooligan Alley,’ says I, rechristening it.</p>
 			<p>“”Twill be our headquarters,’ says O’Connor. ‘My agent here, Don Fernando Pacheco, secured it for us.’</p>
 			<p>“So in that house O’Connor and me established the revolutionary centre. In the front room we had ostensible things such as fruit, a guitar, and a table with a conch shell on it. In the back room O’Connor had his desk and a large looking-glass and his sword hid in a roll of straw matting. We slept on hammocks that we hung to hooks in the wall; and took our meals at the Hotel Ingles, a beanery run on the American plan by a German proprietor with Chinese cooking served à la Kansas City lunch counter.</p>
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@
 			<p>“ ‘Take note,’ says O’Connor to me as thus we walked, ‘of the mass of the people. Observe their oppressed and melancholy air. Can ye not see that they are ripe for revolt? Do ye not perceive that they are disaffected?’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘I do not,’ says I. ‘Nor disinfected either. I’m beginning to understand these people. When they look unhappy they’re enjoying themselves. When they feel unhappy they go to sleep. They’re not the kind of people to take an interest in revolutions.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘They’ll flock to our standard,’ says O’Connor. ‘Three thousand men in this town alone will spring to arms when the signal is given. I am assured of that. But everything is in secret. There is no chance for us to fail.’</p>
-			<p>“On Hooligan Alley, as I prefer to call the street our headquarters was on, there was a row of flat ‘dobe houses with red tile roofs, some straw shacks full of Indians and dogs, and one two-story wooden house with balconies a little farther down. That was where General Tumbalo, the comandante and commander of the military forces, lived. Right across the street was a private residence built like a combination bake-oven and folding-bed. One day, O’Connor and me were passing it, single file, on the flange they called a sidewalk, when out of the window flies a big red rose. O’Connor, who is ahead, picks it up, presses it to his fifth rib, and bows to the ground. By Carrambos! that man certainly had the Irish drama chaunceyized. I looked around expecting to see the little boy and girl in white sateen ready to jump on his shoulder while he jolted their spinal columns and ribs together through a breakdown, and sang: ‘Sleep, Little One, Sleep.’</p>
+			<p>“On Hooligan Alley, as I prefer to call the street our headquarters was on, there was a row of flat ’dobe houses with red tile roofs, some straw shacks full of Indians and dogs, and one two-story wooden house with balconies a little farther down. That was where General Tumbalo, the comandante and commander of the military forces, lived. Right across the street was a private residence built like a combination bake-oven and folding-bed. One day, O’Connor and me were passing it, single file, on the flange they called a sidewalk, when out of the window flies a big red rose. O’Connor, who is ahead, picks it up, presses it to his fifth rib, and bows to the ground. By Carrambos! that man certainly had the Irish drama chaunceyized. I looked around expecting to see the little boy and girl in white sateen ready to jump on his shoulder while he jolted their spinal columns and ribs together through a breakdown, and sang: ‘Sleep, Little One, Sleep.’</p>
 			<p>“As I passed the window I glanced inside and caught a glimpse of a white dress and a pair of big, flashing black eyes and gleaming teeth under a dark lace mantilla.</p>
 			<p>“When we got back to our house O’Connor began to walk up and down the floor and twist his moustaches.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Did ye see her eyes, Bowers?’ he asks me.</p>

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@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
 				<h2 epub:type="title">A Valedictory</h2>
 				<blockquote epub:type="epigraph">
 					<p>The “Some Postscripts” man on the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> has about reached the end of his vein. These spurts of brilliancy many are capable of, but the sustained light that burns for years to gladden and instruct is a rare quality, and the possessor should be appreciated by the people, for he is the true Messiah⁠—the eldest son of the great intellectual lord of the universe.</p>
-					<cite>—Brenham <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Press</i>.</cite>
+					<cite>Brenham <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Press</i></cite>
 				</blockquote>
 			</header>
 			<p>Brother, you should not have given us away. We just had to salt that vein before we could get it in the market, and when the “salt” gave out, and the end of the vein was reached, we hoped you wouldn’t notice the fact. If you hadn’t mentioned it we might have gone on for years gladdening and instructing and drawing princely salary, but now our little spurt of our brilliancy will have to put on its pajamas and retire between the cold sheets of oblivion. We do not blame you at all for calling the public’s attention to the played-out lode, for it is a terrible responsibility to guide the footsteps of innocent purchasers who may be taken in by glittering, quartz and seductive pyrites of iron. To have one whom we regarded as a friend jerk us backward by the left leg when we had made such a successful sneak, and were about to scramble over the back fence of the temple of fame makes us sad, but we do not repine for:</p>
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 					<span>Than never to have spurted at all.”</span>
 				</p>
 			</blockquote>
-			<p>We really intended our light to bum for years, and to have the wick snuffed so quickly, although done in sorrowing kindness, causes us to sputter and smoke a little as we go out.</p>
+			<p>We really intended our light to burn for years, and to have the wick snuffed so quickly, although done in sorrowing kindness, causes us to sputter and smoke a little as we go out.</p>
 			<p>When the true Messiah comes along and shies his valise over to the night clerk, and turns back his cuffs ready to fill the long-felt want; if he should ever hear the whoops of those unappreciative critics who would crucify him, these few lines may teach him to fly to Brenham where his papa, the great intellectual lord of the universe, will protect him.</p>
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@@ -9,9 +9,12 @@
 		<section id="a-years-supply" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">A Years Supply</h2>
 			<p>He was one of the city’s wealthiest men, but he made no ostentatious display of his wealth. A little, thin, poorly clad girl stood looking in the window of the restaurant at the good things to eat. The man approached and touched her on the shoulder.</p>
-			<p>“What is your name, little girl?” he asked. “Susie Tompkins, sir,” she answered, looking up at him with great, haunting, blue eyes.</p>
-			<p>There was something in her pleading, innocent voice that stirred a strange feeling in the millionaire’s heart. Still it may have been indigestion. “Have you a father?” he asked.</p>
-			<p>“Oh, no, sir, mother has only me to support.” “Is your mother very poor?”</p>
+			<p>“What is your name, little girl?” he asked.</p>
+			<p>“Susie Tompkins, sir,” she answered, looking up at him with great, haunting, blue eyes.</p>
+			<p>There was something in her pleading, innocent voice that stirred a strange feeling in the millionaire’s heart. Still it may have been indigestion.</p>
+			<p>“Have you a father?” he asked.</p>
+			<p>“Oh, no, sir, mother has only me to support.”</p>
+			<p>“Is your mother very poor?”</p>
 			<p>“Oh, yes, sir.”</p>
 			<p>“What is your mother’s name?”</p>
 			<p>“Susan, sir. Just like mine.”</p>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="an-afternoon-miracle" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">An Afternoon Miracle</h2>
-			<p>At the United States end of an international river bridge, four armed rangers sweltered in a little ‘dobe hut, keeping a fairly faithful espionage upon the lagging trail of passengers from the Mexican side.</p>
+			<p>At the United States end of an international river bridge, four armed rangers sweltered in a little ’dobe hut, keeping a fairly faithful espionage upon the lagging trail of passengers from the Mexican side.</p>
 			<p>Bud Dawson, proprietor of the Top Notch Saloon, had, on the evening previous, violently ejected from his premises one Leandro Garcia, for alleged violation of the Top Notch code of behaviour. Garcia had mentioned twenty-four hours as a limit, by which time he would call and collect a painful indemnity for personal satisfaction.</p>
 			<p>This Mexican, although a tremendous braggart, was thoroughly courageous, and each side of the river respected him for one of these attributes. He and a following of similar bravoes were addicted to the pastime of retrieving towns from stagnation.</p>
 			<p>The day designated by Garcia for retribution was to be further signalised on the American side by a cattlemen’s convention, a bull fight, and an old settlers’ barbecue and picnic. Knowing the avenger to be a man of his word, and believing it prudent to court peace while three such gently social relaxations were in progress, Captain McNulty, of the ranger company stationed there, detailed his lieutenant and three men for duty at the end of the bridge. Their instructions were to prevent the invasion of Garcia, either alone or attended by his gang.</p>
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@
 			<p>The morning train of the Mexican Central had that day been three hours late, thus failing to connect with the <abbr>I. &amp; G. N.</abbr> on the other side of the river. Passengers for <i xml:lang="es">Los Estados Unidos</i> grumblingly sought entertainment in the little swaggering mongrel town of two nations, for, until the morrow, no other train would come to rescue them. Grumblingly, because two days later would begin the great fair and races in San Antone. Consider that at that time San Antone was the hub of the wheel of Fortune, and the names of its spokes were Cattle, Wool, Faro, Running Horses, and Ozone. In those times cattlemen played at crack-loo on the sidewalks with double-eagles, and gentlemen backed their conception of the fortuitous card with stacks limited in height only by the interference of gravity. Wherefore, thither journeyed the sowers and the reapers⁠—they who stampeded the dollars, and they who rounded them up. Especially did the caterers to the amusement of the people haste to San Antone. Two greatest shows on earth were already there, and dozens of smallest ones were on the way.</p>
 			<p>On a side track near the mean little ’dobe depot stood a private car, left there by the Mexican train that morning and doomed by an ineffectual schedule to ignobly await, amid squalid surroundings, connection with the next day’s regular.</p>
 			<p>The car had been once a common day-coach, but those who had sat in it and gringed to the conductor’s hatband slips would never have recognised it in its transformation. Paint and gilding and certain domestic touches had liberated it from any suspicion of public servitude. The whitest of lace curtains judiciously screened its windows. From its fore end drooped in the torrid air the flag of Mexico. From its rear projected the Stars and Stripes and a busy stovepipe, the latter reinforcing in its suggestion of culinary comforts the general suggestion of privacy and ease. The beholder’s eye, regarding its gorgeous sides, found interest to culminate in a single name in gold and blue letters extending almost its entire length⁠—a single name, the audacious privilege of royalty and genius. Doubly, then, was this arrogant nomenclature here justified; for the name was that of “Alvarita, Queen of the Serpent Tribe.” This, her car, was back from a triumphant tour of the principal Mexican cities, and now headed for San Antonio, where, according to promissory advertisement, she would exhibit her “Marvellous Dominion and Fearless Control over Deadly and Venomous Serpents, Handling them with Ease as they Coil and Hiss to the Terror of Thousands of Tongue-tied Tremblers!”</p>
-			<p>One hundred in the shade kept the vicinity somewhat depeopled. This quarter of the town was a ragged edge; its denizens the bubbling froth of five nations; its architecture tent, jacal, and ‘dobe; its distractions the hurdy-gurdy and the informal contribution to the sudden stranger’s store of experience. Beyond this dishonourable fringe upon the old town’s jowl rose a dense mass of trees, surmounting and filling a little hollow. Through this bickered a small stream that perished down the sheer and disconcerting side of the great canon of the Rio Bravo del Norte.</p>
+			<p>One hundred in the shade kept the vicinity somewhat depeopled. This quarter of the town was a ragged edge; its denizens the bubbling froth of five nations; its architecture tent, jacal, and ’dobe; its distractions the hurdy-gurdy and the informal contribution to the sudden stranger’s store of experience. Beyond this dishonourable fringe upon the old town’s jowl rose a dense mass of trees, surmounting and filling a little hollow. Through this bickered a small stream that perished down the sheer and disconcerting side of the great canon of the Rio Bravo del Norte.</p>
 			<p>In this sordid spot was condemned to remain for certain hours the impotent transport of the Queen of the Serpent Tribe.</p>
 			<p>The front door of the car was open. Its forward end was curtained off into a small reception-room. Here the admiring and propitiatory reporters were wont to sit and transpose the music of Señorita Alvarita’s talk into the more florid key of the press. A picture of Abraham Lincoln hung against a wall; one of a cluster of schoolgirls grouped upon stone steps was in another place; a third was Easter lilies in a blood-red frame. A neat carpet was under foot. A pitcher, sweating cold drops, and a glass stood on a fragile stand. In a willow rocker, reading a newspaper, sat Alvarita.</p>
 			<p>Spanish, you would say; Andalusian, or, better still, Basque; that compound, like the diamond, of darkness and fire. Hair, the shade of purple grapes viewed at midnight. Eyes, long, dusky, and disquieting with their untroubled directness of gaze. Face, haughty and bold, touched with a pretty insolence that gave it life. To hasten conviction of her charm, but glance at the stacks of handbills in the corner, green, and yellow, and white. Upon them you see an incompetent presentment of the señorita in her professional garb and pose. Irresistible, in black lace and yellow ribbons, she faces you; a blue racer is spiralled upon each bare arm; coiled twice about her waist and once about her neck, his horrid head close to hers, you perceive Kuku, the great eleven-foot Asian python.</p>

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@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 		<section id="an-expensive-veracity" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">An Expensive Veracity</h2>
 			<p>A Houston man who attended a great many of Sam Jones’s sermons was particularly impressed with his denunciation of prevaricators, and of lies of all kinds, white, variegated, and black.</p>
-			<p>So strongly was he affected and in such fertile ground did the seed sown by the great evangelist fall, that the Houston man, who had been accustomed occasionally to evade the truth, determined one morning he would turn over a new leaf and tell the truth in all things, big and little. So he commenced the day by scomingj to speak even a word that did not follow the exact truth for a model.</p>
+			<p>So strongly was he affected and in such fertile ground did the seed sown by the great evangelist fall, that the Houston man, who had been accustomed occasionally to evade the truth, determined one morning he would turn over a new leaf and tell the truth in all things, big and little. So he commenced the day by scorning to speak even a word that did not follow the exact truth for a model.</p>
 			<p>At breakfast, his wife said:</p>
 			<p>“How are the biscuit, Henry?”</p>
 			<p>“Rather heavy,” he answered, “and about half done.”</p>

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@@ -9,10 +9,11 @@
 		<section id="an-inspiration" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">An Inspiration</h2>
 			<p>He was seated on an empty box on Main Street late yesterday evening during the cold drizzling rain. He was poorly clad and his thick coat was buttoned up high under his chin. He had a woeful, harassed appearance, and there was something about him that indicated that he was different from the average tramp who beats his way by lies and fraud.</p>
-			<p>The Post man felt a touch of sympathy and went up to him and said:</p>
+			<p>The <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i> man felt a touch of sympathy and went up to him and said:</p>
 			<p>“There’s a place around the corner where you can get a lunch and lodging for a small sum. When did you strike town?”</p>
 			<p>The man gazed at the reporter out of his small, keen eyes and said:</p>
-			<p>“You’re a new man on the Post, are you not?” “Yes, comparatively.”</p>
+			<p>“You’re a new man on the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Post</i>, are you not?”</p>
+			<p>“Yes, comparatively.”</p>
 			<p>“Do you see that block of three-story buildings over there?”</p>
 			<p>“Yes.”</p>
 			<p>“Well, I own them and was just sitting here studying what I’m going to do.”</p>
@@ -21,6 +22,7 @@
 			<p>‘Til tell you what to do.”</p>
 			<p>“What?”</p>
 			<p>“You say the walls are bulging out?”</p>
+			<p>“Yes.”</p>
 			<p>“Well, that makes more room everywhere. You just raise all your tenants’ rent on account of the extra space.”</p>
 			<p>“Young man, you’re a genius. I’ll put rents up twenty percent tomorrow.”</p>
 			<p>And one more capitalist was saved.</p>

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@@ -29,9 +29,9 @@
 			<p>Robert stood still for quite a while and then an original idea struck him.</p>
 			<p>He pulled a handful of change from his pocket and began to call for glass after glass of beer. The lady behind the bar was beaming with pleasure at the success of her experiment. Ordinarily she had made quite a row, if her husband came home smelling of beer⁠—but now, when the profits were falling into her own hands, she made no complaint.</p>
 			<p>It is not known how many glasses she sold her husband but there was quite a little pile of nickels and dimes on the shelf, and two or three quarters.</p>
-			<p>Robert was leaning rather heavily against the bar, now and then raising his foot and making a dab for the rod that was not there, but he was - saying very little. His wife ought to have known better, but the profits rendered her indiscreet.</p>
+			<p>Robert was leaning rather heavily against the bar, now and then raising his foot and making a dab for the rod that was not there, but he was saying very little. His wife ought to have known better, but the profits rendered her indiscreet.</p>
 			<p>Presently Robert remarked in a very loud tone:</p>
-			<p>“Gozzamighty, se’ ’m up all roun’ barkeep’n puzzom on slate’m busted.”</p>
+			<p>“Gozzamighty, se’ ’m up all roun’ barkeep’n puzzom on slate ’m busted.”</p>
 			<p>His wife looked at him in surprise.</p>
 			<p>“Indeed, I will not, Robert,” she said. “You must pay me for everything you have. I thought you understood that.”</p>
 			<p>Robert looked in the mirror as straight as he could, counted his reflections, and then yelled loud enough to be heard a block away:</p>

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@@ -8,18 +8,18 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="an-unsuccessful-experiment" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">An Unsuccessful Experiment</h2>
-			<p>There is an old colored preacher in Texas who is a great admirer of the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones. Last Sunday he determined to drop his old style of exhorting the brethren, and pitch hot shot plump into the middle of their camp, after the manner so successfully followed by the famous Georgia evangelist. After the opening hymn had been sung, and the congregation led in prayer by a worthy deacon, the old preacher laid his spectacles on his Bible, and let out straight from the shoulder.</p>
+			<p>There is an old colored preacher in Texas who is a great admirer of the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-2" id="noteref-2" epub:type="noteref">2</a> Last Sunday he determined to drop his old style of exhorting the brethren, and pitch hot shot plump into the middle of their camp, after the manner so successfully followed by the famous Georgia evangelist. After the opening hymn had been sung, and the congregation led in prayer by a worthy deacon, the old preacher laid his spectacles on his Bible, and let out straight from the shoulder.</p>
 			<p>“My dearly belubbed,” he said, “I has been preachin’ to you fo’ mo’ dan five years, and de grace ob God hab failed to percolate in yo’ obstreperous hearts. I hab nebber seen a more or’nery lot dan dis belubbed congregation. Now dar is Sam Wadkins in de fo’th bench on de left. Kin anybody show me a no’counter, trashier, lowdowner buck nigger in dis community? Whar does the chicken feathers come from what I seen in his back yard dis mawnin’? Kin Brudder Wadkins rise and explain?”</p>
 			<p>Brother Wadkins sat in his pew with his eyes rolling and breathing hard, but was taken by surprise and did not respond.</p>
-			<p>“And dar is Elder Hoskins, on de right. Everybody knows he’s er lying, shiftless, beerdrinking bum. His wife supports him takin’ in washin’. What good is de blood of de Lamb done for him? Wonder ef he thinks dat he kin keep a lofin’ Tound in de kitchen ob de New Jerusalem ?”</p>
-			<p>Elder Hoskins, goaded by these charges, rose in his seat, and said :</p>
+			<p>“And dar is Elder Hoskins, on de right. Everybody knows he’s er lying, shiftless, beer-drinking bum. His wife supports him takin’ in washin’. What good is de blood of de Lamb done for him? Wonder ef he thinks dat he kin keep a lofin’ ’round in de kitchen ob de New Jerusalem ?”</p>
+			<p>Elder Hoskins, goaded by these charges, rose in his seat, and said:</p>
 			<p>“Dat reminds me ob one thing. I doesn’t remember dat I hab ebber worked on de county road fur thirty days down in Bastrop County fur stealin’ a bale of cotton.”</p>
-			<p>Who did? Who did?” said the parson, putting on his specs and glaring at the elder. “Who stole dat cotton? You shet yo’ mouf, niggah, fo’ I come down dah and bust you wide open. Den dar sets Miss Jinny Simpson. Look at dem fine clo’es she got on. Look at dem yallar shoes, and dem ostrick feathers, and dat silk waist and de white glubs. Wliar she git de money to buy dem clo’es? She don’t work none. De Lawd am got his eye on dat triflin’ hussy, and He s gwine ter fling her in de bumin’ brimstone and de squenchable pit.”</p>
+			<p>“Who did? Who did?” said the parson, putting on his specs and glaring at the elder. “Who stole dat cotton? You shet yo’ mouf, niggah, fo’ I come down dah and bust you wide open. Den dar sets Miss Jinny Simpson. Look at dem fine clo’es she got on. Look at dem yallar shoes, and dem ostrick feathers, and dat silk waist and de white glubs. Whar she git de money to buy dem clo’es? She don’t work none. De Lawd am got his eye on dat triflin’ hussy, and He’s gwine ter fling her in de burnin’ brimstone and de squenchable pit.”</p>
 			<p>Miss Simpson arose, her ostrich plumes trembling with indignation.</p>
 			<p>“You mis’able lyin’ ol’ niggah,” she said. “You don’ pay fur none ob my clo’es. S’pose you tells dis ’sembled congregation who was it handed dat big bouquet and dat jib ob cider ober de fence to Liza Jackson yisterday mawnin’ when her old man gone to work?”</p>
 			<p>“Dat’s a lie, you sneakin’, low-down spyin’ daughter ob de debble. I wuz in my house ras’lin in pra’er fur de wicked sisters and brudders ob dis church. I come down dah an’ smack you in de mouf ef you don’t shet up. You is all boun’ for de fire ob destruction. You am all nothin’ but vile sweepins ob de yearth. I see Bill Rodgers ober dar, who am known to hab loaded dice fur playin’ craps, and he nebber pays a cent fur what his family eats. De Lawd am shore gwine ter smote him in de neck. De judgment ob de Spirit am gwine ter rise up an’ call him down.”</p>
 			<p>Bill Rodgers stood up and put his thumbs in the armholes of his vest. “I could name, sah,” he said, “a certain party who wuz run off ob Colonel Yancy’s fahm fo’ playin’ sebben up wid marked cya’ds, ef I choosed to.”</p>
-			<p>“Dat’s anudder lie,” said the preacher, closing his Bible and turning up his cuffs. “Look out, Bill Rodgers, I’m cornin’ down dar to you.”</p>
+			<p>“Dat’s anudder lie,” said the preacher, closing his Bible and turning up his cuffs. “Look out, Bill Rodgers, I’m comin’ down dar to you.”</p>
 			<p>The preacher got out of his pulpit and made for Bill, but Miss Simpson got her hands in his wool first, and Sam Wadkins and Elder Hoskins came quickly to her assistance. Then the rest of the brothers and sisters joined in, and the flying hymn books and the sound of ripping clothes testified to the fact that Sam Jones’s style of preaching did not go in that particular church.</p>
 		</section>
 	</body>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="calculations" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Calculations</h2>
-			<p>Gentleman with long hair and an expression indicating heavenly resignation stepped off the twelve-thirty train at the Grand Central Depot yesterday. He had a little bunch of temperance tracts in his hand, and he struck a strong scent and followed it up to a red-nosed individual who was leaning on a trunk near the baggage room.</p>
+			<p>A gentleman with long hair and an expression indicating heavenly resignation stepped off the twelve-thirty train at the Grand Central Depot yesterday. He had a little bunch of temperance tracts in his hand, and he struck a strong scent and followed it up to a red-nosed individual who was leaning on a trunk near the baggage room.</p>
 			<p>“My friend,” said the long-haired man, “do you know that if you had placed the price of three drinks out at compound interest at the time of the building of Solomon’s temple, you would now have $47,998,645.22?”</p>
 			<p>“I do,” said the red-nosed man. “I am something of a calculator myself. I also figured out when the doctor insisted on painting my nose with iodine to cure that boil, that the first lanternjawed, bone-spavined, rubbernecked son-of-a-gun from the amen corner of Meddlesome County that made any remarks about it would have to jump seventeen feet in nine seconds or get kicked thirteen times below the belt. You have just four seconds left.”</p>
 			<p>The long-haired man made a brilliant retreat within his allotted time, and bore down with his temperance tracts upon a suspicious-looking Houston man who was carrying home a bottle of mineral water wrapped in a newspaper to his mother-in-law.</p>

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@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
 			<p>“What is your authority for this intrusion?”</p>
 			<p>“I am an instrument of the republic. I was advised by wire of the movements of the⁠—gentleman in Number 10.”</p>
 			<p>“May I ask you two or three questions? I believe you to be a man more apt to be truthful than⁠—timid. What sort of a town is this⁠—Coralio, I think they call it?”</p>
-			<p>“Not much of a town,” said Goodwin, smiling. “A banana town, as they run. Grass huts, ‘dobes, five or six two-story houses, accommodations limited, population half-breed Spanish and Indian, Caribs and blackamoors. No sidewalks to speak of, no amusements. Rather unmoral. That’s an offhand sketch, of course.”</p>
+			<p>“Not much of a town,” said Goodwin, smiling. “A banana town, as they run. Grass huts, ’dobes, five or six two-story houses, accommodations limited, population half-breed Spanish and Indian, Caribs and blackamoors. No sidewalks to speak of, no amusements. Rather unmoral. That’s an offhand sketch, of course.”</p>
 			<p>“Are there any inducements, say in a social or in a business way, for people to reside here?”</p>
 			<p>“Oh, yes,” answered Goodwin, smiling broadly. “There are no afternoon teas, no hand-organs, no department stores⁠—and there is no extradition treaty.”</p>
 			<p>“He told me,” went on the lady, speaking as if to herself, and with a slight frown, “that there were towns on this coast of beauty and importance; that there was a pleasing social order⁠—especially an American colony of cultured residents.”</p>

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@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 			<p>One night Johnny propounded to Rosine a question that is considered of much importance by the young of the human species. The accessories were all there⁠—moonlight, oleanders, magnolias, the mock-bird’s song. Whether or no the shadow of Pinkney Dawson, the prosperous young farmer, came between them on that occasion is not known; but Rosine’s answer was unfavourable. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> John De Graffenreid Atwood bowed till his hat touched the lawn grass, and went away with his head high, but with a sore wound in his pedigree and heart. A Hemstetter refuse an Atwood! Zounds!</p>
 			<p>Among other accidents of that year was a Democratic president. Judge Atwood was a warhorse of Democracy. Johnny persuaded him to set the wheels moving for some foreign appointment. He would go away⁠—away. Perhaps in years to come Rosine would think how true, how faithful his love had been, and would drop a tear⁠—maybe in the cream she would be skimming for Pink Dawson’s breakfast.</p>
 			<p>The wheels of politics revolved; and Johnny was appointed consul to Coralio. Just before leaving he dropped in at Hemstetter’s to say goodbye. There was a queer, pinkish look about Rosine’s eyes; and had the two been alone, the United States might have had to cast about for another consul. But Pink Dawson was there, of course, talking about his 400-acre orchard, and the three-mile alfalfa tract, and the 200-acre pasture. So Johnny shook hands with Rosine as coolly as if he were only going to run up to Montgomery for a couple of days. They had the royal manner when they chose, those Atwoods.</p>
-			<p>“If you happen to strike anything in the way of a good investment down there, Johnny,” said Pink Dawson, “just let me know, will you? I reckon I could lay my hands on a few extra thousands ‘most any time for a profitable deal.”</p>
+			<p>“If you happen to strike anything in the way of a good investment down there, Johnny,” said Pink Dawson, “just let me know, will you? I reckon I could lay my hands on a few extra thousands ’most any time for a profitable deal.”</p>
 			<p>“Certainly, Pink,” said Johnny, pleasantly. “If I strike anything of the sort I’ll let you in with pleasure.”</p>
 			<p>So Johnny went down to Mobile and took a fruit steamer for the coast of Anchuria.</p>
 			<p>When the new consul arrived in Coralio the strangeness of the scenes diverted him much. He was only twenty-two; and the grief of youth is not worn like a garment as it is by older men. It has its seasons when it reigns; and then it is unseated for a time by the assertion of the keen senses.</p>
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@
 			<p>The sloop was now on its outward tack; but from it came a clear, answering hail:</p>
 			<p>“Goodbye, Billy … going home⁠—bye!”</p>
 			<p>The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Andador</i> was the sloop’s destination. No doubt some passenger with a sailing permit from some up-the-coast point had come down in this sloop to catch the regular fruit steamer on its return trip. Like a coquettish pigeon the little boat tacked on its eccentric way until at last its white sail was lost to sight against the larger bulk of the fruiter’s side.</p>
-			<p>“That’s old H. P. Mellinger,” explained Keogh, dropping back into his chair. “He’s going back to New York. He was private secretary of the late hotfoot president of this grocery and fruit stand that they call a country. His job’s over now; and I guess old Mellinger is glad.”</p>
+			<p>“That’s old <abbr>H. P.</abbr> Mellinger,” explained Keogh, dropping back into his chair. “He’s going back to New York. He was private secretary of the late hotfoot president of this grocery and fruit stand that they call a country. His job’s over now; and I guess old Mellinger is glad.”</p>
 			<p>“Why does he disappear to music, like Zo-zo, the magic queen?” asked Johnny. “Just to show ’em that he doesn’t care?”</p>
 			<p>“That noise you heard is a phonograph,” said Keogh. “I sold him that. Mellinger had a graft in this country that was the only thing of its kind in the world. The tooting machine saved it for him once, and he always carried it around with him afterward.”</p>
 			<p>“Tell me about it,” demanded Johnny, betraying interest.</p>

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@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@
 			<p>A barefooted policeman who had been watching the affair from across the street blew a whistle. A squad of four soldiers came running from the cuartel around the corner. When they saw that the offender was Dicky, they stopped, and blew more whistles, which brought out reenforcements of eight. Deeming the odds against them sufficiently reduced, the military advanced upon the disturber.</p>
 			<p>Dicky, being thoroughly imbued with the martial spirit, stooped and drew the comandante sword, which was girded about him, and charged his foe. He chased the standing army four squares, playfully prodding its squealing rear and hacking at its ginger-coloured heels.</p>
 			<p>But he was not so successful with the civic authorities. Six muscular, nimble policemen overpowered him and conveyed him, triumphantly but warily, to jail. “<i xml:lang="es">El Diablo Colorado</i>” they dubbed him, and derided the military for its defeat.</p>
-			<p>Dicky, with the rest of the prisoners, could look out through the barred door at the grass of the little plaza, at a row of orange trees and the red tile roofs and ‘dobe walls of a line of insignificant stores.</p>
+			<p>Dicky, with the rest of the prisoners, could look out through the barred door at the grass of the little plaza, at a row of orange trees and the red tile roofs and ’dobe walls of a line of insignificant stores.</p>
 			<p>At sunset along a path across this plaza came a melancholy procession of sad-faced women bearing plantains, cassaba, bread and fruit⁠—each coming with food to some wretch behind those bars to whom she still clung and furnished the means of life. Twice a day⁠—morning and evening⁠—they were permitted to come. Water was furnished to her compulsory guests by the republic, but no food.</p>
 			<p>That evening Dicky’s name was called by the sentry, and he stepped before the bars of the door. There stood his little saint, a black mantilla draped about her head and shoulders, her face like glorified melancholy, her clear eyes gazing longingly at him as if they might draw him between the bars to her. She brought a chicken, some oranges, dulces and a loaf of white bread. A soldier inspected the food, and passed it in to Dicky. Pasa spoke calmly, as she always did, briefly, in her thrilling, flute-like tones. “Angel of my life,” she said, “let it not be long that thou art away from me. Thou knowest that life is not a thing to be endured with thou not at my side. Tell me if I can do aught in this matter. If not, I will wait⁠—a little while. I come again in the morning.”</p>
 			<p>Dicky, with his shoes removed so as not to disturb his fellow prisoners, tramped the floor of the jail half the night condemning his lack of money and the cause of it⁠—whatever that might have been. He knew very well that money would have bought his release at once.</p>

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@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@
 					<p>An estate famous in Texas legal history. It took many, many years for adjustment and a large part of the property was, of course, consumed as expenses of litigation. <a href="fickle-fortune-or-how-gladys-hustled.xhtml#noteref-1" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
 				</li>
 				<li id="note-2" epub:type="endnote">
-					<p>The methods of the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones, who was the Billy Sunday of his time, were frequently the subject of O. Henry’s satire. <a href="a-cheering-thought.xhtml#noteref-2" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
+					<p>The methods of the <abbr>Rev.</abbr> Sam Jones, who was the Billy Sunday of his time, were frequently the subject of O. Henry’s satire. <a href="an-unsuccessful-experiment.xhtml#noteref-2" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>
 				</li>
 				<li id="note-3" epub:type="endnote">
 					<p>See advertising column, “Where to Dine Well,” in the daily newspapers. <a href="a-dinner-at-.xhtml#noteref-3" epub:type="backlink">↩</a></p>

src/epub/text/explaining-it.xhtml

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="explaining-it" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Explaining It</h2>
-			<p>Member of the Texas Legislature from one of the eastern counties was at the chrysanthemum, show at Turner Hall last Thursday night, and was making himself agreeable to one of the lady managers.</p>
+			<p>A member of the Texas Legislature from one of the eastern counties was at the chrysanthemum show at Turner Hall last Thursday night, and was making himself agreeable to one of the lady managers.</p>
 			<p>“You were in the House at the last session, I believe?” she inquired.</p>
 			<p>“Well, madam,” he said, “I was in the House, but the Senate had me for about forty-five dollars when we adjourned.”</p>
 		</section>

src/epub/text/grounds-for-uneasiness.xhtml

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 			<p>While playing a beautiful adagio movement in a minor key, the Professor caught sight of his host casting uneasy glances out of the window and appearing very restless and worried. Presently the Houston gentleman came over to the piano and touched Professor Sousa on the shoulder.</p>
 			<p>“Say,” he said, “please play something livelier. Give us a jig or a quickstep⁠—something fast and jolly.”</p>
 			<p>“Ah,” said the Professor, “this sad music affects your spirits then?”</p>
-			<p>“No, said the host, “I’ve got a man in the back yard sawing wood by the day, and he’s been keeping time to your music for the last half hour.”</p>
+			<p>“No,” said the host, “I’ve got a man in the back yard sawing wood by the day, and he’s been keeping time to your music for the last half hour.”</p>
 		</section>
 	</body>
 </html>

src/epub/text/holding-up-a-train.xhtml

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 			<p>One man has come pretty near robbing a train by himself; two have succeeded a few times; three can do it if they are hustlers, but five is about the right number. The time to do it and the place depend upon several things.</p>
 			<p>The first “stickup” I was ever in happened in 1890. Maybe the way I got into it will explain how most train robbers start in the business. Five out of six Western outlaws are just cowboys out of a job and gone wrong. The sixth is a tough from the East who dresses up like a bad man and plays some low-down trick that gives the boys a bad name. Wire fences and “nesters” made five of them; a bad heart made the sixth.</p>
 			<p>Jim S⁠⸺ and I were working on the 101 Ranch in Colorado. The nesters had the cowman on the go. They had taken up the land and elected officers who were hard to get along with. Jim and I rode into La Junta one day, going south from a roundup. We were having a little fun without malice toward anybody when a farmer administration cut in and tried to harvest us. Jim shot a deputy marshal, and I kind of corroborated his side of the argument. We skirmished up and down the main street, the boomers having bad luck all the time. After a while we leaned forward and shoved for the ranch down on the Ceriso. We were riding a couple of horses that couldn’t fly, but they could catch birds.</p>
-			<p>A few days after that, a gang of the La Junta boomers came to the ranch and wanted us to go back with them. Naturally, we declined. We had the house on them, and before we were done refusing, that old ‘dobe was plumb full of lead. When dark came we fagged ’em a batch of bullets and shoved out the back door for the rocks. They sure smoked us as we went. We had to drift, which we did, and rounded up down in Oklahoma.</p>
+			<p>A few days after that, a gang of the La Junta boomers came to the ranch and wanted us to go back with them. Naturally, we declined. We had the house on them, and before we were done refusing, that old ’dobe was plumb full of lead. When dark came we fagged ’em a batch of bullets and shoved out the back door for the rocks. They sure smoked us as we went. We had to drift, which we did, and rounded up down in Oklahoma.</p>
 			<p>Well, there wasn’t anything we could get there, and, being mighty hard up, we decided to transact a little business with the railroads. Jim and I joined forces with Tom and Ike Moore⁠—two brothers who had plenty of sand they were willing to convert into dust. I can call their names, for both of them are dead. Tom was shot while robbing a bank in Arkansas; Ike was killed during the more dangerous pastime of attending a dance in the Creek Nation.</p>
 			<p>We selected a place on the Santa Fé where there was a bridge across a deep creek surrounded by heavy timber. All passenger trains took water at the tank close to one end of the bridge. It was a quiet place, the nearest house being five miles away. The day before it happened, we rested our horses and “made medicine” as to how we should get about it. Our plans were not at all elaborate, as none of us had ever engaged in a holdup before.</p>
 			<p>The Santa Fé flyer was due at the tank at 11:15 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> At eleven, Tom and I lay down on one side of the track, and Jim and Ike took the other. As the train rolled up, the headlight flashing far down the track and the steam hissing from the engine, I turned weak all over. I would have worked a whole year on the ranch for nothing to have been out of that affair right then. Some of the nerviest men in the business have told me that they felt the same way the first time.</p>

src/epub/text/how-it-started.xhtml

@@ -13,8 +13,9 @@
 			<p>“It’s an old feud of several years’ standing,” said the old resident, “between the editor and the Judkins family. About every two months they get to shooting at one another. Everybody in town knows about it. This is the way it started. The Judkinses live in another town, and one time a good-looking young lady of the family came here on a visit to a <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown. <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Brown gave her a big party⁠—a regular high-toned affair, to get the young men acquainted with her. One young fellow fell in love with her, and sent a little poem to our paper, the <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Observer</i>. This is the way it read:</p>
 			<blockquote epub:type="z3998:poem">
 				<header>
-					<span>To <b>Miss Judkins</b></span>
-					<span>(Visiting <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> T. Montcalm Brown.)</span>
+					To <b>Miss Judkins</b>
+					<br/>
+					(Visiting <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> T. Montcalm Brown.)
 				</header>
 				<p>
 					<span>We love to see her wear</span>
@@ -41,8 +42,9 @@
 			<p>“Then the editor himself got hold of it. He is heavily interested in our new electric light plant, and his blue pencil jumped on the line ‘While bright the gaslight shone’ in a hurry. Later on one of the printers came in and grabbed a lot of copy, and this poem was among it. You know what printers will do if you give them a chance, so here is the way the poem came out in the paper:</p>
 			<blockquote epub:type="z3998:poem">
 				<header>
-					<span>To <b>Miss Judkins</b></span>
-					<span>(Visiting <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> T. Montcalm Brown.)</span>
+					To <b>Miss Judkins</b>
+					<br/>
+					(Visiting <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> T. Montcalm Brown.)
 				</header>
 				<p>
 					<span>We loved to see her wear</span>

src/epub/text/identified.xhtml

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 			<p>“You will have to be identified,” said the cashier, “by someone who knows your name to be Henry B. Saunders.”</p>
 			<p>“But I don’t know anybody in Houston,” said the stranger. “Here’s a lot of letters addressed to me, and a telegram from my firm, and a lot of business cards. Won’t they be identification enough?”</p>
 			<p>“I am sorry,” said the cashier, “but while I have no doubt that you are the party, our rule is to require better identification.”</p>
-			<p>The man unbuttoned his vest and showed the initial, H. B. S., on his shirt. “Does that go?” he asked. The cashier shook his head “You might have Henry B. Saunders’ letters, and his papers, and also his shirt on, without being the right man. We are forced to be very careful.”</p>
+			<p>The man unbuttoned his vest and showed the initial, <abbr class="name">H. B. S.</abbr>, on his shirt. “Does that go?” he asked. The cashier shook his head. “You might have Henry B. Saunders’ letters, and his papers, and also his shirt on, without being the right man. We are forced to be very careful.”</p>
 			<p>The stranger tore open his shirt front, and exhibited a large mustard plaster, covering his entire chest. “There,” he shouted, “if I wasn’t Henry B. Saunders, do you suppose I would go around wearing one of his mustard plasters stuck all over me? Do you think I would carry my impersonation of anybody far enough to blister myself to look like him? Gimme tens and fives, now, I haven’t got time to fool any more.”</p>
 			<p>The cashier hesitated and then shoved out the money. After the stranger had gone, the official rubbed his chin gently and said softly to himself: “That plaster might be somebody else’s after all, but no doubt it’s all right.”</p>
 		</section>

src/epub/text/jimmy-hayes-and-muriel.xhtml

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@
 				<h3 epub:type="title z3998:roman">I</h3>
 				<p>Supper was over, and there had fallen upon the camp the silence that accompanies the rolling of cornhusk cigarettes. The water hole shone from the dark earth like a patch of fallen sky. Coyotes yelped. Dull thumps indicated the rocking-horse movements of the hobbled ponies as they moved to fresh grass. A half-troop of the Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers were distributed about the fire.</p>
 				<p>A well-known sound⁠—the fluttering and scraping of chaparral against wooden stirrups⁠—came from the thick brush above the camp. The rangers listened cautiously. They heard a loud and cheerful voice call out reassuringly:</p>
-				<p>“Brace up, Muriel, old girl, we’re ‘most there now! Been a long ride for ye, ain’t it, ye old antediluvian handful of animated carpet-tacks? Hey, now, quit a tryin’ to kiss me! Don’t hold on to my neck so tight⁠—this here paint hoss ain’t any too shore-footed, let me tell ye. He’s liable to dump us both off if we don’t watch out.”</p>
+				<p>“Brace up, Muriel, old girl, we’re ’most there now! Been a long ride for ye, ain’t it, ye old antediluvian handful of animated carpet-tacks? Hey, now, quit a tryin’ to kiss me! Don’t hold on to my neck so tight⁠—this here paint hoss ain’t any too shore-footed, let me tell ye. He’s liable to dump us both off if we don’t watch out.”</p>
 				<p>Two minutes of waiting brought a tired “paint” pony single-footing into camp. A gangling youth of twenty lolled in the saddle. Of the “Muriel” whom he had been addressing, nothing was to be seen.</p>
 				<p>“Hi, fellows!” shouted the rider cheerfully. “This here’s a letter fer Lieutenant Manning.”</p>
 				<p>He dismounted, unsaddled, dropped the coils of his stake-rope, and got his hobbles from the saddle-horn. While Lieutenant Manning, in command, was reading the letter, the newcomer, rubbed solicitously at some dried mud in the loops of the hobbles, showing a consideration for the forelegs of his mount.</p>
@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 				<p>Jimmy Hayes became a favourite in the ranger camp. He had an endless store of good-nature, and a mild, perennial quality of humour that is well adapted to camp life. He was never without his horned frog. In the bosom of his shirt during rides, on his knee or shoulder in camp, under his blankets at night, the ugly little beast never left him.</p>
 				<p>Jimmy was a humourist of a type that prevails in the rural South and West. Unskilled in originating methods of amusing or in witty conceptions, he had hit upon a comical idea and clung to it reverently. It had seemed to Jimmy a very funny thing to have about his person, with which to amuse his friends, a tame horned frog with a red ribbon around its neck. As it was a happy idea, why not perpetuate it?</p>
 				<p>The sentiments existing between Jimmy and the frog cannot be exactly determined. The capability of the horned frog for lasting affection is a subject upon which we have had no symposiums. It is easier to guess Jimmy’s feelings. Muriel was his chef d’oeuvre of wit, and as such he cherished her. He caught flies for her, and shielded her from sudden northers. Yet his care was half selfish, and when the time came she repaid him a thousand fold. Other Muriels have thus overbalanced the light attentions of other Jimmies.</p>
-				<p>Not at once did Jimmy Hayes attain full brotherhood with his comrades. They loved him for his simplicity and drollness, but there hung above him a great sword of suspended judgment. To make merry in camp is not all of a ranger’s life. There are horse-thieves to trail, desperate criminals to run down, bravos to battle with, bandits to rout out of the chaparral, peace and order to be compelled at the muzzle of a six-shooter. Jimmy had been “ ‘most generally a cowpuncher,” he said; he was inexperienced in ranger methods of warfare. Therefore the rangers speculated apart and solemnly as to how he would stand fire. For, let it be known, the honour and pride of each ranger company is the individual bravery of its members.</p>
+				<p>Not at once did Jimmy Hayes attain full brotherhood with his comrades. They loved him for his simplicity and drollness, but there hung above him a great sword of suspended judgment. To make merry in camp is not all of a ranger’s life. There are horse-thieves to trail, desperate criminals to run down, bravos to battle with, bandits to rout out of the chaparral, peace and order to be compelled at the muzzle of a six-shooter. Jimmy had been “ ’most generally a cowpuncher,” he said; he was inexperienced in ranger methods of warfare. Therefore the rangers speculated apart and solemnly as to how he would stand fire. For, let it be known, the honour and pride of each ranger company is the individual bravery of its members.</p>
 				<p>For two months the border was quiet. The rangers lolled, listless, in camp. And then⁠—bringing joy to the rusting guardians of the frontier⁠—Sebastiano Saldar, an eminent Mexican desperado and cattle-thief, crossed the Rio Grande with his gang and began to lay waste the Texas side. There were indications that Jimmy Hayes would soon have the opportunity to show his mettle. The rangers patrolled with alacrity, but Saldar’s men were mounted like Lochinvar, and were hard to catch.</p>
 				<p>One evening, about sundown, the rangers halted for supper after a long ride. Their horses stood panting, with their saddles on. The men were frying bacon and boiling coffee. Suddenly, out of the brush, Sebastiano Saldar and his gang dashed upon them with blazing six-shooters and high-voiced yells. It was a neat surprise. The rangers swore in annoyed tones, and got their Winchesters busy; but the attack was only a spectacular dash of the purest Mexican type. After the florid demonstration the raiders galloped away, yelling, down the river. The rangers mounted and pursued; but in less than two miles the fagged ponies laboured so that Lieutenant Manning gave the word to abandon the chase and return to the camp.</p>
 				<p>Then it was discovered that Jimmy Hayes was missing. Someone remembered having seen him run for his pony when the attack began, but no one had set eyes on him since. Morning came, but no Jimmy. They searched the country around, on the theory that he had been killed or wounded, but without success. Then they followed after Saldar’s gang, but it seemed to have disappeared. Manning concluded that the wily Mexican had recrossed the river after his theatric farewell. And, indeed, no further depredations from him were reported.</p>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="knew-what-was-needed" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Knew What Was Needed</h2>
-			<p>A gentleman from Ohio, who has come South on a hunting trip, arrived in H6uston, rather late one night last week, and on his way to a hotel stoppecLin a certain saloon to get a drink. A colored man was behind the bar temporarily and served him with what he wanted. The gentleman had his shotgun in its case, and he laid it upon the bar while waiting.</p>
+			<p>A gentleman from Ohio, who has come South on a hunting trip, arrived in Houston, rather late one night last week, and on his way to a hotel stopped in a certain saloon to get a drink. A colored man was behind the bar temporarily and served him with what he wanted. The gentleman had his shotgun in its case, and he laid it upon the bar while waiting.</p>
 			<p>“Is there any game about here?” he asked, after paying for his drink.</p>
 			<p>“I guess dey is, boss,” said the colored man, looking doubtfully at the gun on the counter, “but you jest wait a minute, boss, till I fixes you up in better shape.”</p>
 			<p>He opened a drawer and handed the gentleman a six-shooter.</p>

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@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@
 			<p>I’ll tell you about that flat. The house was the ordinary thing in New York, paved with Parian marble in the entrance hall and cobblestones above the first floor. Our flat was three⁠—well, not flights⁠—climbs up. My mistress rented it unfurnished, and put in the regular things⁠—1903 antique unholstered parlour set, oil chromo of geishas in a Harlem tea house, rubber plant and husband.</p>
 			<p>By Sirius! there was a biped I felt sorry for. He was a little man with sandy hair and whiskers a good deal like mine. Henpecked?⁠—well, toucans and flamingoes and pelicans all had their bills in him. He wiped the dishes and listened to my mistress tell about the cheap, ragged things the lady with the squirrel-skin coat on the second floor hung out on her line to dry. And every evening while she was getting supper she made him take me out on the end of a string for a walk.</p>
 			<p>If men knew how women pass the time when they are alone they’d never marry. Laura Lean Jibbey, peanut brittle, a little almond cream on the neck muscles, dishes unwashed, half an hour’s talk with the iceman, reading a package of old letters, a couple of pickles and two bottles of malt extract, one hour peeking through a hole in the window shade into the flat across the air-shaft⁠—that’s about all there is to it. Twenty minutes before time for him to come home from work she straightens up the house, fixes her rat so it won’t show, and gets out a lot of sewing for a ten-minute bluff.</p>
-			<p>I led a dog’s life in that flat. ‘Most all day I lay there in my corner watching that fat woman kill time. I slept sometimes and had pipe dreams about being out chasing cats into basements and growling at old ladies with black mittens, as a dog was intended to do. Then she would pounce upon me with a lot of that drivelling poodle palaver and kiss me on the nose⁠—but what could I do? A dog can’t chew cloves.</p>
+			<p>I led a dog’s life in that flat. ’Most all day I lay there in my corner watching that fat woman kill time. I slept sometimes and had pipe dreams about being out chasing cats into basements and growling at old ladies with black mittens, as a dog was intended to do. Then she would pounce upon me with a lot of that drivelling poodle palaver and kiss me on the nose⁠—but what could I do? A dog can’t chew cloves.</p>
 			<p>I began to feel sorry for Hubby, dog my cats if I didn’t. We looked so much alike that people noticed it when we went out; so we shook the streets that Morgan’s cab drives down, and took to climbing the piles of last December’s snow on the streets where cheap people live.</p>
 			<p>One evening when we were thus promenading, and I was trying to look like a prize <abbr>St.</abbr> Bernard, and the old man was trying to look like he wouldn’t have murdered the first organ-grinder he heard play Mendelssohn’s wedding-march, I looked up at him and said, in my way:</p>
 			<p>“What are you looking so sour about, you oakum trimmed lobster? She don’t kiss you. You don’t have to sit on her lap and listen to talk that would make the book of a musical comedy sound like the maxims of Epictetus. You ought to be thankful you’re not a dog. Brace up, Benedick, and bid the blues begone.”</p>

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@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@
 			<p>“ ‘Stupid!’ says I. ‘He wants you to draw on him for election expenses. It’ll be worse than tattooing. More like an autopsy.’</p>
 			<p>“Me and Denver steamed down to Panama, and then hiked across the Isthmus, and then by steamer again down to the town of Espiritu on the coast of the General’s country.</p>
 			<p>“That was a town to send J. Howard Payne to the growler. I’ll tell you how you could make one like it. Take a lot of Filipino huts and a couple of hundred brickkilns and arrange ’em in squares in a cemetery. Cart down all the conservatory plants in the Astor and Vanderbilt greenhouses, and stick ’em about wherever there’s room. Turn all the Bellevue patients and the barbers’ convention and the Tuskegee school loose in the streets, and run the thermometer up to 120 in the shade. Set a fringe of the Rocky Mountains around the rear, let it rain, and set the whole business on Rockaway Beach in the middle of January⁠—and you’d have a good imitation of Espiritu.</p>
-			<p>“It took me and Denver about a week to get acclimated. Denver sent out the letters the General had given him, and notified the rest of the gang that there was something doing at the captain’s office. We set up headquarters in an old ‘dobe house on a side street where the grass was waist high. The election was only four weeks off; but there wasn’t any excitement. The home candidate for president was named Roadrickeys. This town of Esperitu wasn’t the capital any more than Cleveland, Ohio, is the capital of the United States, but it was the political centre where they cooked up revolutions, and made up the slates.</p>
+			<p>“It took me and Denver about a week to get acclimated. Denver sent out the letters the General had given him, and notified the rest of the gang that there was something doing at the captain’s office. We set up headquarters in an old ’dobe house on a side street where the grass was waist high. The election was only four weeks off; but there wasn’t any excitement. The home candidate for president was named Roadrickeys. This town of Esperitu wasn’t the capital any more than Cleveland, Ohio, is the capital of the United States, but it was the political centre where they cooked up revolutions, and made up the slates.</p>
 			<p>“At the end of the week Denver says the machine is started running.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Sully,’ says he, ‘we’ve got a walkover. Just because General Rompiro ain’t Don Juan-on-the-spot the other crowd ain’t at work. They’re as full of apathy as a territorial delegate during the chaplain’s prayer. Now, we want to introduce a little hot stuff in the way of campaigning, and we’ll surprise ’em at the polls.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘How are you going to go about it?’ I asks.</p>

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@@ -9,8 +9,8 @@
 		<section id="red-conlins-eloquence" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Red Conlin’s Eloquence</h2>
 			<p>They were speaking of the power of great orators, and each one had something to say of his especial favorite.</p>
-			<p>The drummer was for backing Bourke Cockran for oratory against the world, the young lawyer thought the suave Ingersoll the most persuasive pleader, and the insurance agent advanced the claims of the magnetic W. C. P. Breckenridge.</p>
-			<p>“They all talk some,” said the old cattle man, who was puffing his pipe and listening, “but they couldn’t hold a candle to Red Conlin, that run cattle below Santone in ’8o. Ever know Red?”</p>
+			<p>The drummer was for backing Bourke Cockran for oratory against the world, the young lawyer thought the suave Ingersoll the most persuasive pleader, and the insurance agent advanced the claims of the magnetic <abbr class="name">W. C. P.</abbr> Breckenridge.</p>
+			<p>“They all talk some,” said the old cattle man, who was puffing his pipe and listening, “but they couldn’t hold a candle to Red Conlin, that run cattle below Santone in ’80. Ever know Red?”</p>
 			<p>Nobody had had the honor.</p>
 			<p>“Red Conlin was a natural orator; he wasn’t overcrowded with book learnin’, but his words come free and easy, like whisky out of a new faucet from a full barrel. He was always in a good humor and smilin’ clear across his face, and if he asked for a hot biscuit he did it like he was pleadin’ for his life. He was one man who had the gift of gab, and it never failed him.</p>
 			<p>“I remember once, in Atascosa County, the hoss thieves worried us right smart. There was a gang of ’em, and they got runnin’ off a caballaro every week or so. Some of us got together and raised a p’int of order and concluded to sustain it. The head of the gang was a fellow named Mullens, and a tough cuss he was. Fight, too, and warn’t particular when. Twenty of us saddled up and went into camp, loaded down with six-shooters and Winchesters. That Mullens had the nerve to try to cut off our saddle horses the first night, but we heard him, got mounted, and went hot on his trail. There was five or six others with Mullens.</p>
@@ -22,8 +22,8 @@
 			<p>“ ‘Whatever are we to do?’ says I, and it sure was a case to think about.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘We ought to be nigh Sandy’s house now,’ said one of the men, who was tryin’ to peer around and kind of locate the scene of our brilliant coop detaw, as they say.</p>
 			<p>“Just then we seen a light from a door that opened in the dark, and the house wasn’t two hundred yards away, and we saw what we knew must be Sandy’s wife in the door a-lookin’ for him.</p>
-			<p>“ ‘Somebody’s got to go and tell her,’ said I. “I was kind o’ leadin’ the boys. ‘Who’ll do it?’ Nobody jumped at the proposition.</p>
-			<p>“ ‘Red Conlin’ says I, you’re the man to tell her, and the only man here what could open his mouth to the poor girl. Go, like a man, and may the Lord teach you what to say, for d⁠—d if I can.’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘Somebody’s got to go and tell her,’ said I. I was kind o’ leadin’ the boys. ‘Who’ll do it?’ Nobody jumped at the proposition.</p>
+			<p>“ ‘Red Conlin’ says I, ‘you’re the man to tell her, and the only man here what could open his mouth to the poor girl. Go, like a man, and may the Lord teach you what to say, for d⁠⸺d if I can.’</p>
 			<p>“That boy never hesitated. I saw him kind o’ wet his hand, and smooth back his red curls in the dark, and I seen his teeth shinin’ as he said:</p>
 			<p>“ ‘I’ll go, boys; wait for me.’</p>
 			<p>“He went and we saw the door open and let him in.</p>

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@@ -9,9 +9,9 @@
 		<section id="revenge" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<header>
 				<h2 epub:type="title">Revenge</h2>
-				<blockquote epub:type="z3998:epigraph">
+				<blockquote epub:type="epigraph">
 					<p>The man, woman, child, or animal who pens “Postscripts” for the Houston Post is a weird, wild-eyed genius and ought to be captured and put on exhibition with the “nameless things” they are taking out of the government well at San Marcos. There is certainly a reward for both specimens.</p>
-					<cite>Kyle <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Star-Vindicator</i>.</cite>
+					<cite>Kyle <i epub:type="se:name.publication.newspaper">Star-Vindicator</i></cite>
 				</blockquote>
 			</header>
 			<p>Although we can stand a great deal, this attack has goaded us to what is perhaps a bitter and cruel, but not entirely an unjustifiable revenge. Below will be found an editorial from the last number of the Star-Vindicator:</p>

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@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 			<p>That night he ripped open a corner of it and took out a handful of the cockleburrs. He examined them with the care with which a warrior examines his arms before he goes forth to battle for his ladylove and life. The burrs were the ripe August product, as hard as filberts, and bristling with spines as tough and sharp as needles. Johnny whistled softly a little tune, and went out to find Billy Keogh.</p>
 			<p>Later in the night, when Coralio was steeped in slumber, he and Billy went forth into the deserted streets with their coats bulging like balloons. All up and down the Calle Grande they went, sowing the sharp burrs carefully in the sand, along the narrow sidewalks, in every foot of grass between the silent houses. And then they took the side streets and byways, missing none. No place where the foot of man, woman or child might fall was slighted. Many trips they made to and from the prickly hoard. And then, nearly at the dawn, they laid themselves down to rest calmly, as great generals do after planning a victory according to the revised tactics, and slept, knowing that they had sowed with the accuracy of Satan sowing tares and the perseverance of Paul planting.</p>
 			<p>With the rising sun came the purveyors of fruits and meats, and arranged their wares in and around the little market-house. At one end of the town near the seashore the market-house stood; and the sowing of the burrs had not been carried that far. The dealers waited long past the hour when their sales usually began. None came to buy. “<i xml:lang="es">Qué hay?</i>” they began to exclaim, one to another.</p>
-			<p>At their accustomed time, from every ‘dobe and palm hut and grass-thatched shack and dim patio glided women⁠—black women, brown women, lemon-colored women, women dun and yellow and tawny. They were the marketers starting to purchase the family supply of cassava, plantains, meat, fowls, and tortillas. Décolleté they were and bare-armed and barefooted, with a single skirt reaching below the knee. Stolid and ox-eyed, they stepped from their doorways into the narrow paths or upon the soft grass of the streets.</p>
+			<p>At their accustomed time, from every ’dobe and palm hut and grass-thatched shack and dim patio glided women⁠—black women, brown women, lemon-colored women, women dun and yellow and tawny. They were the marketers starting to purchase the family supply of cassava, plantains, meat, fowls, and tortillas. Décolleté they were and bare-armed and barefooted, with a single skirt reaching below the knee. Stolid and ox-eyed, they stepped from their doorways into the narrow paths or upon the soft grass of the streets.</p>
 			<p>The first to emerge uttered ambiguous squeals, and raised one foot quickly. Another step and they sat down, with shrill cries of alarm, to pick at the new and painful insects that had stung them upon the feet. “<i xml:lang="es">Qué picadores diablos!</i>” they screeched to one another across the narrow ways. Some tried the grass instead of the paths, but there they were also stung and bitten by the strange little prickly balls. They plumped down in the grass, and added their lamentations to those of their sisters in the sandy paths. All through the town was heard the plaint of the feminine jabber. The venders in the market still wondered why no customers came.</p>
 			<p>Then men, lords of the earth, came forth. They, too, began to hop, to dance, to limp, and to curse. They stood stranded and foolish, or stooped to pluck at the scourge that attacked their feet and ankles. Some loudly proclaimed the pest to be poisonous spiders of an unknown species.</p>
 			<p>And then the children ran out for their morning romp. And now to the uproar was added the howls of limping infants and cockleburred childhood. Every minute the advancing day brought forth fresh victims.</p>

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@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@
 			<p>But I beg you to observe <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> James Williams⁠—Hattie Chalmers that was⁠—once the belle of Cloverdale. Pale-blue is the bride’s, if she will; and this colour she had honoured. Willingly had the moss rosebud loaned to her cheeks of its pink⁠—and as for the violet!⁠—her eyes will do very well as they are, thank you. A useless strip of white chaf⁠—oh, no, he was guiding the auto car⁠—of white chiffon⁠—or perhaps it was grenadine or tulle⁠—was tied beneath her chin, pretending to hold her bonnet in place. But you know as well as I do that the hatpins did the work.</p>
 			<p>And on <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> James Williams’s face was recorded a little library of the world’s best thoughts in three volumes. Volume <abbr>No.</abbr> 1 contained the belief that James Williams was about the right sort of thing. Volume <abbr>No.</abbr> 2 was an essay on the world, declaring it to be a very excellent place. Volume <abbr>No.</abbr> 3 disclosed the belief that in occupying the highest seat in a Rubberneck auto they were travelling the pace that passes all understanding.</p>
 			<p>James Williams, you would have guessed, was about twenty-four. It will gratify you to know that your estimate was so accurate. He was exactly twenty-three years, eleven months and twenty-nine days old. He was well built, active, strong-jawed, good-natured and rising. He was on his wedding trip.</p>
-			<p>Dear kind fairy, please cut out those orders for money and 40 H. P. touring cars and fame and a new growth of hair and the presidency of the boat club. Instead of any of them turn backward⁠—oh, turn backward and give us just a teeny-weeny bit of our wedding trip over again. Just an hour, dear fairy, so we can remember how the grass and poplar trees looked, and the bow of those bonnet strings tied beneath her chin⁠—even if it was the hatpins that did the work. Can’t do it? Very well; hurry up with that touring car and the oil stock, then.</p>
+			<p>Dear kind fairy, please cut out those orders for money and 40 <abbr>H. P.</abbr> touring cars and fame and a new growth of hair and the presidency of the boat club. Instead of any of them turn backward⁠—oh, turn backward and give us just a teeny-weeny bit of our wedding trip over again. Just an hour, dear fairy, so we can remember how the grass and poplar trees looked, and the bow of those bonnet strings tied beneath her chin⁠—even if it was the hatpins that did the work. Can’t do it? Very well; hurry up with that touring car and the oil stock, then.</p>
 			<p>Just in front of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> James Williams sat a girl in a loose tan jacket and a straw hat adorned with grapes and roses. Only in dreams and milliners’ shops do we, alas! gather grapes and roses at one swipe. This girl gazed with large blue eyes, credulous, when the megaphone man roared his doctrine that millionaires were things about which we should be concerned. Between blasts she resorted to Epictetian philosophy in the form of pepsin chewing gum.</p>
 			<p>At this girl’s right hand sat a young man about twenty-four. He was well-built, active, strong-jawed and good-natured. But if his description seems to follow that of James Williams, divest it of anything Cloverdalian. This man belonged to hard streets and sharp corners. He looked keenly about him, seeming to begrudge the asphalt under the feet of those upon whom he looked down from his perch.</p>
 			<p>While the megaphone barks at a famous hostelry, let me whisper you through the low-tuned cardiaphone to sit tight; for now things are about to happen, and the great city will close over them again as over a scrap of ticker tape floating down from the den of a Broad street bear.</p>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="slightly-mixed" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Slightly Mixed</h2>
-			<p>A certain Houston racing man was married some months ago. He also is the proud possessor of a fine two-year-old filly that has made five and a half furlongs in 1.09 and he expects her to do better at the next races. He has named the filly after his wife and both of them are dear to his heart. A Post man who ran across him yesterday found him quite willing to talk.</p>
+			<p>A certain Houston racing man was married some months ago. He also is the proud possessor of a fine two-year-old filly that has made five and a half furlongs in 1:09 and he expects her to do better at the next races. He has named the filly after his wife and both of them are dear to his heart. A Post man who ran across him yesterday found him quite willing to talk.</p>
 			<p>“Yes,” he said, “I am the happiest man in Texas. Bessie and I are keeping house now and getting quite well settled down. That filly of mine is going to do wonders yet. Bessie takes as much interest in her as I do. You know I have named her for my wife. She is a thoroughbred. I tell you it’s fine to see her trotting around at home.”</p>
 			<p>“Who, the filly?”</p>
 			<p>“No, my wife. She’s going to bet twelve dozen pairs of kid gloves on Bessie next time she goes in. I have but one objection to her. She goes with her head on one side and is cross-legged, and tears off her shoes.</p>

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@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
 			<p>“Same here,” said the little man from <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis. “I can just see the kids now tumbling round on the floor and cutting up larks before Laura puts them to bed. There’s one blessing, though, I’ll be home on Thanksgiving.”</p>
 			<p>“I had a letter from home today,” said the white-bearded Philadelphian, “and it made me homesick. I would give a foot of that slushy pavement on Spruce Street for all these balmy airs and mockingbird solos in the South. I’m going to strike a bee line for the Quaker City in time for that fat turkey, I don’t care what my house says.”</p>
 			<p>“Yust hear dot band playing,” said the fat gentleman. “I can almost dink I vos back in Cincinnati ‘neber die Rhein’ mit dot schplendid little beautiful girl from de hat factory. I dink it is dese lovely nights vot makes us of home, sweet home, gedinken.”</p>
-			<p>“Now you’re shoutin’,” said the Chicago hardware drummer. “I wish I was in French Pete’s restaurant on State Street with a big bottle of beer and some chitterlings and lemon pie. I’m, feelin’ kinder sentimental myself tonight.”</p>
+			<p>“Now you’re shoutin’,” said the Chicago hardware drummer. “I wish I was in French Pete’s restaurant on State Street with a big bottle of beer and some chitterlings and lemon pie. I’m feelin’ kinder sentimental myself tonight.”</p>
 			<p>“The worst part of it is,” said the man with the gold nose glasses and green necktie, “that our dear ones are separated from us by many long and dreary miles, and we little know what obstacles in the shape of storm and flood and wreck lie in our way. If we could but annihilate time and space for a brief interval there are many of us who would clasp the forms of those we love to our hearts tonight. I, too, am a husband and father.”</p>
 			<p>“That breeze,” said the man from New York, “feels exactly like the ones that used to blow over the old farm in Montgomery County, and that ‘orchard and meadow, and deep tangled wildwood,’ <abbr>etc.</abbr>, keep bobbing up in my memory tonight.”</p>
 			<p>“How many of us,” said the man with gold glasses, “realize the many pitfalls that Fate digs in our path? What a slight thing may sever the cord that binds us to life! There today, tomorrow gone forever from the world!”</p>
@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
 			<p>“And leave those we love behind,” continued the other. “The affections of a lifetime, the love of the strongest hearts, ended in the twinkling of an eye. One loses the clasp of hands that would detain and drifts away into the sad, unknowable, other existence, leaving aching hearts to mourn forever. Life seems all a tragedy.”</p>
 			<p>“Banged if you ain’t rung the bell first shot,” said the Chicago drummer. “Our affections get busted up something worse’n killing hogs.”</p>
 			<p>The others frowned upon the Chicago drummer, for the man with gold glasses was about to speak again.</p>
-			<p>“We say,” he went on, “that love will live forever, and yet when we are gone others step into our places and the wounds our loss had made are healed. And yet there is an added pang to death that those of us that are wise can avoid, fhe sting of death and the victory of the grave can be lessened. When we know that our hours are numbered, and when we lie with ebbing breath and there comes</p>
+			<p>“We say,” he went on, “that love will live forever, and yet when we are gone others step into our places and the wounds our loss had made are healed. And yet there is an added pang to death that those of us that are wise can avoid, the sting of death and the victory of the grave can be lessened. When we know that our hours are numbered, and when we lie with ebbing breath and there comes</p>
 			<blockquote epub:type="z3998:poem">
 				<p>
 					<span class="i1">‘Unto dying ears the earliest pipe</span>

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@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@
 			<p>“Don’t feel good at all?”</p>
 			<p>“No. Feel like the devil. Feel sick, en burnin’ inside.”</p>
 			<p>“Is yer head buzzin’, Lem, and er achin’?”</p>
-			<p>“Yes, Dad, en is yer knees a kind er wobblin’, en yer eyes a waterin’ ?”</p>
+			<p>“Yes, Dad, en is yer knees a kind er wobblin’, en yer eyes a waterin’?”</p>
 			<p>“You bet, en is yer stummick er gripin’ en does yer feel like yer had swallowed a wild cat en er litter of kittens?”</p>
 			<p>“Yes, Dad, and don’t you wish we wuz to home, whar we could lie down in ther clover patch en kick?”</p>
 			<p>“Yes, sonny, this here is what comes of goin’ back on yer ma. Does yer feel real bad?”</p>

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@@ -10,8 +10,7 @@
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Speaking of Big Winds</h2>
 			<p>The man with the bronzed face and distinguished air was a great traveler, and had just returned from a tour around the world. He sat around the stove at the Lamlor, and four or five drummers and men about town listened with much interest to his tales.</p>
 			<p>He was speaking of the fierce wind storms that occur in South America, when the long grass of the pampas is interlaced and blown so flat by the hurricanes that it is cut into strips and sold for the finest straw matting.</p>
-			<p>He spoke also of the great intelligence of the wild cattle which, he said, although blown about</p>
-			<p>by the furious hurricanes and compelled to drift for days before the drenching floods of the rainy season, never lost their direction by day or night.</p>
+			<p>He spoke also of the great intelligence of the wild cattle which, he said, although blown about by the furious hurricanes and compelled to drift for days before the drenching floods of the rainy season, never lost their direction by day or night.</p>
 			<p>“How do they guide themselves?” asked the Topeka flour drummer.</p>
 			<p>“Oh, by their udders, of course,” said the traveler.</p>
 			<p>“I don’t see anything to laugh about,” said the Kansas man, “but speaking of big winds we have something of the kind in our state. You’ve all heard of the Kansas cyclones, but very few of you know what they are. We have plenty of them and some are pretty hard ones, too, but most of the stories you read about them are exaggerated. Still a good, full-grown cyclone can carry things pretty high sometimes. About the only thing they spend their fury upon in vain is a real estate agent. I know a fellow, named Bob Long, who was a real estate hustler from away back. Bob had bought up a lot of prairie land cheap, and was trying to sell it in small tracts for farms and truck patches. One day he took a man in his buggy out to this land and was showing it to him. ‘Just look at it,’ he said. ‘It is the finest, richest piece of ground in Kansas. Now it’s worth more, but to start things off, and get improvements to going, I’ll sell you 160 acres of this land at $40 per—!’</p>

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@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@
 			<p>“Without saying any more, we went out after supper and set on the railroad track. We had been pardners too long not to know what was going on in each other’s mind.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘I reckon you understand,’ says Paisley, ‘that I’ve made up my mind to accrue that widow woman as part and parcel in and to my hereditaments forever, both domestic, sociable, legal, and otherwise, until death us do part.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Why, yes,’ says I, ‘I read it between the lines, though you only spoke one. And I suppose you are aware,’ says I, ‘that I have a movement on foot that leads up to the widow’s changing her name to Hicks, and leaves you writing to the society column to inquire whether the best man wears a japonica or seamless socks at the wedding!’</p>
-			<p>“ ‘There’ll be some hiatuses in your program,’ says Paisley, chewing up a piece of a railroad tie. ‘I’d give in to you,’ says he, ‘in ‘most any respect if it was secular affairs, but this is not so. The smiles of woman,’ goes on Paisley, ‘is the whirlpool of Squills and Chalybeates, into which vortex the good ship Friendship is often drawn and dismembered. I’d assault a bear that was annoying you,’ says Paisley, ‘or I’d endorse your note, or rub the place between your shoulder-blades with opodeldoc the same as ever; but there my sense of etiquette ceases. In this fracas with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessup we play it alone. I’ve notified you fair.’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘There’ll be some hiatuses in your program,’ says Paisley, chewing up a piece of a railroad tie. ‘I’d give in to you,’ says he, ‘in ’most any respect if it was secular affairs, but this is not so. The smiles of woman,’ goes on Paisley, ‘is the whirlpool of Squills and Chalybeates, into which vortex the good ship Friendship is often drawn and dismembered. I’d assault a bear that was annoying you,’ says Paisley, ‘or I’d endorse your note, or rub the place between your shoulder-blades with opodeldoc the same as ever; but there my sense of etiquette ceases. In this fracas with <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessup we play it alone. I’ve notified you fair.’</p>
 			<p>“And then I collaborates with myself, and offers the following resolutions and bylaws:</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Friendship between man and man,’ says I, ‘is an ancient historical virtue enacted in the days when men had to protect each other against lizards with eighty-foot tails and flying turtles. And they’ve kept up the habit to this day, and stand by each other till the bellboy comes up and tells them the animals are not really there. I’ve often heard,’ I says, ‘about ladies stepping in and breaking up a friendship between men. Why should that be? I’ll tell you, Paisley, the first sight and hot biscuit of <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Jessup appears to have inserted a oscillation into each of our bosoms. Let the best man of us have her. I’ll play you a square game, and won’t do any underhanded work. I’ll do all of my courting of her in your presence, so you will have an equal opportunity. With that arrangement I don’t see why our steamboat of friendship should fall overboard in the medicinal whirlpools you speak of, whichever of us wins out.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Good old hoss!’ says Paisley, shaking my hand. ‘And I’ll do the same,’ says he. ‘We’ll court the lady synonymously, and without any of the prudery and bloodshed usual to such occasions. And we’ll be friends still, win or lose.’</p>

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@@ -13,14 +13,16 @@
 			<p>The colonel hailed from Alabama, the judge was born in the swamps of Mississippi, the grocer first saw the light in a frozen town of Maine, and the major proudly claimed Tennessee as his birthplace.</p>
 			<p>“Have any of you fellows been back home since you left there?” asked the colonel.</p>
 			<p>The judge had been back twice in twenty years, the major once, the grocer never.</p>
-			<p>“It’s a curious feeling,” said the colonel, “to go back to the old home where you were raised, after an absence of fifteen years. It is like seeing ghosts to be among people w’hom you have not seen in so long a time. Now I went back to Crosstree, Alabama, just fifteen years after I left there. The impression made upon me was one that never will be obliterated.</p>
+			<p>“It’s a curious feeling,” said the colonel, “to go back to the old home where you were raised, after an absence of fifteen years. It is like seeing ghosts to be among people whom you have not seen in so long a time. Now I went back to Crosstree, Alabama, just fifteen years after I left there. The impression made upon me was one that never will be obliterated.</p>
 			<p>“There was a girl in Crosstree once that I loved better than anything in the world. One day I slipped away from everybody and went down to the little grove where I used to walk with her. I walked along the paths we used to tread. The oaks along the side had scarcely changed; the little blue flowers on either hand might have been the same ones she used to twine in her hair when she came to meet me.</p>
 			<p>“Our favorite walk had been along a line of thick laurels beyond which ran a little stream. Everything was the same. There was no change there to oppress my heart. Above were the same great sycamores and poplars; there ran the same brook; my feet trod the same path they had so often walked with her. It seemed that if I waited she would surely come again, tripping so lightly through the gloaming with her starry eyes, and nut-brown curls, and she loved me, too. It seemed then that nothing could ever have parted us⁠—no doubt, no misunderstanding, no falsehood. But who can tell?</p>
 			<p>“I went to the end of the path. There stood the old hollow tree in which we used to place notes to each other. What sweet words that old tree could tell if it had known! I had fancied that during the rubs and knocks I had received from the world my heart had grown calloused, but such was not the case.</p>
 			<p>“I looked down into the hollow of the tree, and saw something white. It was a folded piece of paper, yellow and stained with age. I opened it and read it with difficulty.</p>
-			<p>“ ‘Dearest Richard: You know I will marry you if you want me to. Come round early tonight and I will give you my answer in a better way. Your own Nellie.’</p>
+			<blockquote epub:type="z3998:letter">
+				<p>“ ‘Dearest Richard: You know I will marry you if you want me to. Come round early tonight and I will give you my answer in a better way. Your own Nellie.’</p>
+			</blockquote>
 			<p>“Gentlemen, I stood there holding that little piece of paper in my hand like one in a dream. I had written her a note asking her to marry me and telling her to leave her answer in the old tree. She must have done so, and I never got it, and all those years had rolled away since.”</p>
-			<p>The crowd was silent. The maj or wiped his eyes, and the judge sniffed a little. They were middle-aged men now, but they, too, had known love.</p>
+			<p>The crowd was silent. The major wiped his eyes, and the judge sniffed a little. They were middle-aged men now, but they, too, had known love.</p>
 			<p>“And then,” said the grocer, “you left right away for Texas and never saw her again ?”</p>
 			<p>“No,” said the colonel. “When I didn’t come round that night she sent her father after me, and we were married two months later. She and the five kids are up at the house now. Pass the tobacco, please.”</p>
 		</section>

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@@ -13,8 +13,8 @@
 			<p>Senior Partner: Do they give us another order?</p>
 			<p>Junior Partner: Yes! The longest they have ever made.</p>
 			<p>Senior Partner: Ship ’em C. O. D.</p>
-			<p>“Well! how are they coming?”</p>
 			<hr/>
+			<p>“Well! how are they coming?”</p>
 			<p>“I’m getting a move on me,” said the checkerboard.</p>
 			<p>“And I’m getting a head in the world,” said the piece of sensation news.</p>
 			<p>“I’m dead in it,” said the spoiled bivalve at the clambake.</p>

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@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@
 			<p>“So that’s the way George and me was friends. There wasn’t any sentiment about it⁠—it was just give and take, and each of us knew that the other was ready for the call at any time.</p>
 			<p>“I remember, once, I played a sort of joke on George, just to try him. I felt a little mean about it afterward, because I never ought to have doubted he’d do it.</p>
 			<p>“We was both living in a little town in the San Luis valley, running some flocks of sheep and a few cattle. We were partners, but, as usual, we didn’t live together. I had an old aunt, out from the East, visiting for the summer, so I rented a little cottage. She soon had a couple of cows and some pigs and chickens to make the place look like home. George lived alone in a little cabin half a mile out of town.</p>
-			<p>“One day a calf that we had, died. That night I broke its bones, dumped it into a coarse sack and tied it up with wire. I put on an old shirt, tore a sleeve ‘most out of it, and the collar half off, tangled up my hair, put some red ink on my hands and spashed some of it over my shirt and face. I must have looked like I’d been having the fight of my life. I put the sack in a wagon and drove out to George’s cabin. When I halloed, he came out in a yellow dressing-gown, a Turkish cap and patent leather shoes. George always was a great dresser.</p>
+			<p>“One day a calf that we had, died. That night I broke its bones, dumped it into a coarse sack and tied it up with wire. I put on an old shirt, tore a sleeve ’most out of it, and the collar half off, tangled up my hair, put some red ink on my hands and spashed some of it over my shirt and face. I must have looked like I’d been having the fight of my life. I put the sack in a wagon and drove out to George’s cabin. When I halloed, he came out in a yellow dressing-gown, a Turkish cap and patent leather shoes. George always was a great dresser.</p>
 			<p>“I dumped the bundle to the ground.</p>
 			<p>“Sh-sh!’ says I, kind of wild in my way. ‘Take that and bury it, George, out somewhere behind your house⁠—bury it just like it is. And don⁠—’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Don’t get excited,’ says George. ‘And for the Lord’s sake go and wash your hands and face and put on a clean shirt.’</p>

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@@ -12,15 +12,14 @@
 				<span epub:type="subtitle">(Mostly in Words of One Syllable)</span>
 			</h2>
 			<p>James was a good boy.</p>
-			<p>He w’ould not tease his cat or his dog.</p>
+			<p>He would not tease his cat or his dog.</p>
 			<p>He went to school.</p>
-			<p>One day as he went home he saw à lady cross the street, and some rude boys tried to guy her.</p>
+			<p>One day as he went home he saw a lady cross the street, and some rude boys tried to guy her.</p>
 			<p>James took the lady by the hand and led her to a safe place.</p>
 			<p>“Oh, fie!” he said to the boys. “For shame, to talk so to the nice lady. A good, kind boy will be mild and love to help the old.”</p>
 			<p>At this the boys did rail and laugh.</p>
 			<p>“Oh, boys,” said James, “do not be rude and speak so harsh. At home, I have a dear old grandma, and this kind lady may be one, too.”</p>
-			<p>The lady took James by the ear and said: “You contemptible little rapscallion. I’ve a good mind to spank you until you can’t navigate.</p>
-			<p>Grandmother, indeed! I’m only twenty-nine my last birthday, and I don’t feel a day over eighteen. Now, you clear out, or I’ll slap you good.”</p>
+			<p>The lady took James by the ear and said: “You contemptible little rapscallion. I’ve a good mind to spank you until you can’t navigate. Grandmother, indeed! I’m only twenty-nine my last birthday, and I don’t feel a day over eighteen. Now, you clear out, or I’ll slap you good.”</p>
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@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
 			<p>For the first time in his life, Uncle Bushrod told Marse Robert a falsehood. He could not repress it. He would have to circumlocute a little. His nerve was not equal to a direct attack.</p>
 			<p>“I done been down, suh, to see ol’ Aunt M’ria Patterson. She taken sick in de night, and I kyar’ed her a bottle of M’lindy’s medercine. Yes, suh.”</p>
 			<p>“Humph!” said Robert. “You better get home out of the night air. It’s damp. You’ll hardly be worth killing tomorrow on account of your rheumatism. Think it’ll be a clear day, Bushrod?”</p>
-			<p>“I ‘low it will, suh. De sun sot red las’ night.”</p>
+			<p>“I ’low it will, suh. De sun sot red las’ night.”</p>
 			<p><abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert lit a cigar in the shadow, and the smoke looked like his gray ghost expanding and escaping into the night air. Somehow, Uncle Bushrod could barely force his reluctant tongue to the dreadful subject. He stood, awkward, shambling, with his feet upon the gravel and fumbling with his stick. But then, afar off⁠—three miles away, at the Jimtown switch⁠—he heard the faint whistle of the coming train, the one that was to transport the Weymouth name into the regions of dishonour and shame. All fear left him. He took off his hat and faced the chief of the clan he served, the great, royal, kind, lofty, terrible Weymouth⁠—he bearded him there at the brink of the awful thing that was about to happen.</p>
 			<p>“Marse Robert,” he began, his voice quivering a little with the stress of his feelings, “you ‘member de day dey-all rode de tunnament at Oak Lawn? De day, suh, dat you win in de ridin’, and you crown Miss Lucy de queen?”</p>
 			<p>“Tournament?” said <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Robert, taking his cigar from his mouth. “Yes, I remember very well the⁠—but what the deuce are you talking about tournaments here at midnight for? Go ‘long home, Bushrod. I believe you’re sleepwalking.”</p>

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@@ -33,7 +33,7 @@
 			<p>“I put it to you straight, Sandy,” says Idaho, quiet. “It’s a poem book,” says he, “by Homer K. M. I couldn’t get colour out of it at first, but there’s a vein if you follow it up. I wouldn’t have missed this book for a pair of red blankets.”</p>
 			<p>“You’re welcome to it,” says I. “What I want is a disinterested statement of facts for the mind to work on, and that’s what I seem to find in the book I’ve drawn.”</p>
 			<p>“What you’ve got,” says Idaho, “is statistics, the lowest grade of information that exists. They’ll poison your mind. Give me old K. M.’s system of surmises. He seems to be a kind of a wine agent. His regular toast is ‘nothing doing,’ and he seems to have a grouch, but he keeps it so well lubricated with booze that his worst kicks sound like an invitation to split a quart. But it’s poetry,” says Idaho, “and I have sensations of scorn for that truck of yours that tries to convey sense in feet and inches. When it comes to explaining the instinct of philosophy through the art of nature, old K. M. has got your man beat by drills, rows, paragraphs, chest measurement, and average annual rainfall.”</p>
-			<p>So that’s the way me and Idaho had it. Day and night all the excitement we got was studying our books. That snowstorm sure fixed us with a fine lot of attainments apiece. By the time the snow melted, if you had stepped up to me suddenly and said: “Sanderson Pratt, what would it cost per square foot to lay a roof with twenty by twenty-yight tin at nine dollars and fifty cents per box?” I’d have told you as quick as light could travel the length of a spade handle at the rate of one hundred and ninety-two thousand miles per second. How many can do it? You wake up ‘most any man you know in the middle of the night, and ask him quick to tell you the number of bones in the human skeleton exclusive of the teeth, or what percentage of the vote of the Nebraska Legislature overrules a veto. Will he tell you? Try him and see.</p>
+			<p>So that’s the way me and Idaho had it. Day and night all the excitement we got was studying our books. That snowstorm sure fixed us with a fine lot of attainments apiece. By the time the snow melted, if you had stepped up to me suddenly and said: “Sanderson Pratt, what would it cost per square foot to lay a roof with twenty by twenty-yight tin at nine dollars and fifty cents per box?” I’d have told you as quick as light could travel the length of a spade handle at the rate of one hundred and ninety-two thousand miles per second. How many can do it? You wake up ’most any man you know in the middle of the night, and ask him quick to tell you the number of bones in the human skeleton exclusive of the teeth, or what percentage of the vote of the Nebraska Legislature overrules a veto. Will he tell you? Try him and see.</p>
 			<p>About what benefit Idaho got out of his poetry book I didn’t exactly know. Idaho boosted the wine-agent every time he opened his mouth; but I wasn’t so sure.</p>
 			<p>This Homer K. M., from what leaked out of his libretto through Idaho, seemed to me to be a kind of a dog who looked at life like it was a tin can tied to his tail. After running himself half to death, he sits down, hangs his tongue out, and looks at the can and says:</p>
 			<p>“Oh, well, since we can’t shake the growler, let’s get it filled at the corner, and all have a drink on me.”</p>

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@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@
 			<p>Truly, the life of the merry head-hunter captivated me. He had reduced art and philosophy to a simple code. To take your adversary’s head, to basket it at the portal of your castle, to see it lying there, a dead thing, with its cunning and stratagems and power gone⁠—Is there a better way to foil his plots, to refute his arguments, to establish your superiority over his skill and wisdom?</p>
 			<p>The ship that brought me home was captained by an erratic Swede, who changed his course and deposited me, with genuine compassion, in a small town on the Pacific coast of one of the Central American republics, a few hundred miles south of the port to which he had engaged to convey me. But I was wearied of movement and exotic fancies; so I leaped contentedly upon the firm sands of the village of Mojada, telling myself I should be sure to find there the rest that I craved. After all, far better to linger there (I thought), lulled by the sedative plash of the waves and the rustling of palm-fronds, than to sit upon the horsehair sofa of my parental home in the East, and there, cast down by currant wine and cake, and scourged by fatuous relatives, drivel into the ears of gaping neighbors sad stories of the death of colonial governors.</p>
 			<hr/>
-			<p>When I first saw Chloe Greene she was standing, all in white, in the doorway of her father’s tile-roofed ‘dobe house. She was polishing a silver cup with a cloth, and she looked like a pearl laid against black velvet. She turned on me a flatteringly protracted but a wiltingly disapproving gaze, and then went inside, humming a light song to indicate the value she placed upon my existence.</p>
+			<p>When I first saw Chloe Greene she was standing, all in white, in the doorway of her father’s tile-roofed ’dobe house. She was polishing a silver cup with a cloth, and she looked like a pearl laid against black velvet. She turned on me a flatteringly protracted but a wiltingly disapproving gaze, and then went inside, humming a light song to indicate the value she placed upon my existence.</p>
 			<p>Small wonder: for <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Stamford (the most disreputable professional man between Juneau and Valparaiso) and I were zigzagging along the turfy street, tunelessly singing the words of “Auld Lang Syne” to the air of “Muzzer’s Little Coal-Black Coon.” We had come from the ice factory, which was Mojada’s palace of wickedness, where we had been playing billiards and opening black bottles, white with frost, that we dragged with strings out of old Sandoval’s ice-cold vats.</p>
 			<p>I turned in sudden rage to <abbr>Dr.</abbr> Stamford, as sober as the verger of a cathedral. In a moment I had become aware that we were swine cast before a pearl.</p>
 			<p>“You beast,” I said, “this is half your doing. And the other half is the fault of this cursed country. I’d better have gone back to Sleepy-town and died in a wild orgy of currant wine and buns than to have had this happen.”</p>

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@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@
 			<p>“ ‘Get your hat, you old dried-up alligator,’ I shouts, ‘you ain’t dead yet. You’re part human, anyhow, if you did get all bogged up in matrimony. We’ll take this town to pieces and see what makes it tick. We’ll make all kinds of profligate demands upon the science of cork pulling. You’ll grow horns yet, old muley cow,’ says I, punching Perry in the ribs, ‘if you trot around on the trail of vice with your Uncle Buck.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘I’ll have to be home by seven, you know,’ says Perry again.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Oh, yes,’ says I, winking to myself, for I knew the kind of seven o’clocks Perry Rountree got back by after he once got to passing repartee with the bartenders.</p>
-			<p>“We goes down to the Gray Mule saloon⁠—that old ‘dobe building by the depot.</p>
+			<p>“We goes down to the Gray Mule saloon⁠—that old ’dobe building by the depot.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Give it a name,’ says I, as soon as we got one hoof on the footrest.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Sarsaparilla,’ says Perry.</p>
 			<p>“You could have knocked me down with a lemon peeling.</p>
@@ -54,7 +54,7 @@
 			<p>“ ‘What’s that?’ I wonders.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Oh, some nonsense outside,’ says Perry. ‘It’s your move. We just got time to play this game.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘I’ll just take a peep through the window,’ says I, ‘and see. You can’t expect a mere mortal to stand the excitement of having a king jumped and listen to an unidentified conflict going on at the same time.’</p>
-			<p>“The Gray Mule saloon was one of them old Spanish ‘dobe buildings, and the back room only had two little windows a foot wide, with iron bars in ’em. I looked out one, and I see the cause of the rucus.</p>
+			<p>“The Gray Mule saloon was one of them old Spanish ’dobe buildings, and the back room only had two little windows a foot wide, with iron bars in ’em. I looked out one, and I see the cause of the rucus.</p>
 			<p>“There was the Trimble gang⁠—ten of ’em⁠—the worst outfit of desperadoes and horse-thieves in Texas, coming up the street shooting right and left. They was coming right straight for the Gray Mule. Then they got past the range of my sight, but we heard ’em ride up to the front door, and then they socked the place full of lead. We heard the big looking-glass behind the bar knocked all to pieces and the bottles crashing. We could see Gotch-eared Mike in his apron running across the plaza like a coyote, with the bullets puffing up dust all around him. Then the gang went to work in the saloon, drinking what they wanted and smashing what they didn’t.</p>
 			<p>“Me and Petty both knew that gang, and they knew us. The year before Perry married, him and me was in the same ranger company⁠—and we fought that outfit down on the San Miguel, and brought back Ben Trimble and two others for murder.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘We can’t get out,’ says I. ‘We’ll have to stay in here till they leave.’</p>

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@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@
 			<p>“The third day of the rain it slacked up awhile in the afternoon, so me and Andy walked out to the edge of town to view the mudscape. Bird City was built between the Rio Grande and a deep wide arroyo that used to be the old bed of the river. The bank between the stream and its old bed was cracking and giving away, when we saw it, on account of the high water caused by the rain. Andy looks at it a long time. That man’s intellects was never idle. And then he unfolds to me a instantaneous idea that has occurred to him. Right there was organized a trust; and we walked back into town and put it on the market.</p>
 			<p>“First we went to the main saloon in Bird City, called the Blue Snake, and bought it. It cost us $1,200. And then we dropped in, casual, at Mexican Joe’s place, referred to the rain, and bought him out for $500. The other one came easy at $400.</p>
 			<p>“The next morning Bird City woke up and found itself an island. The river had busted through its old channel, and the town was surrounded by roaring torrents. The rain was still raining, and there was heavy clouds in the northwest that presaged about six more mean annual rainfalls during the next two weeks. But the worst was yet to come.</p>
-			<p>“Bird City hopped out of its nest, waggled its pin feathers and strolled out for its matutinal toot. Lo! Mexican Joe’s place was closed and likewise the other little ‘dobe life saving station. So, naturally the body politic emits thirsty ejaculations of surprise and ports hellum for the Blue Snake. And what does it find there?</p>
+			<p>“Bird City hopped out of its nest, waggled its pin feathers and strolled out for its matutinal toot. Lo! Mexican Joe’s place was closed and likewise the other little ’dobe life saving station. So, naturally the body politic emits thirsty ejaculations of surprise and ports hellum for the Blue Snake. And what does it find there?</p>
 			<p>“Behind one end of the bar sits Jefferson Peters, octopus, with a sixshooter on each side of him, ready to make change or corpses as the case may be. There are three bartenders; and on the wall is a ten foot sign reading: ‘All Drinks One Dollar.’ Andy sits on the safe in his neat blue suit and gold-banded cigar, on the lookout for emergencies. The town marshal is there with two deputies to keep order, having been promised free drinks by the trust.</p>
 			<p>“Well, sir, it took Bird City just ten minutes to realize that it was in a cage. We expected trouble; but there wasn’t any. The citizens saw that we had ’em. The nearest railroad was thirty miles away; and it would be two weeks at least before the river would be fordable. So they began to cuss, amiable, and throw down dollars on the bar till it sounded like a selection on the xylophone.</p>
 			<p>“There was about 1,500 grownup adults in Bird City that had arrived at years of indiscretion; and the majority of ’em required from three to twenty drinks a day to make life endurable. The Blue Snake was the only place where they could get ’em till the flood subsided. It was beautiful and simple as all truly great swindles are.</p>

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@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@
 			<p>“Henry and me met at Texarkana, and figured out this phonograph scheme. He had $360 which came to him out of a land allotment in the reservation. I had run down from Little Rock on account of a distressful scene I had witnessed on the street there. A man stood on a box and passed around some gold watches, screw case, stem-winders, Elgin movement, very elegant. Twenty bucks they cost you over the counter. At three dollars the crowd fought for the tickers. The man happened to find a valise full of them handy, and he passed them out like putting hot biscuits on a plate. The backs were hard to unscrew, but the crowd put its ear to the case, and they ticked mollifying and agreeable. Three of these watches were genuine tickers; the rest were only kickers. Hey? Why, empty cases with one of them horny black bugs that fly around electric lights in ’em. Them bugs kick off minutes and seconds industrious and beautiful. So, this man I was speaking of cleaned up $288; and then he went away, because he knew that when it came time to wind watches in Little Rock an entomologist would be needed, and he wasn’t one.</p>
 			<p>“So, as I say, Henry had $360, and I had $288. The idea of introducing the phonograph to South America was Henry’s; but I took to it freely, being fond of machinery of all kinds.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘The Latin races,’ says Henry, explaining easy in the idioms he learned at college, ‘are peculiarly adapted to be victims of the phonograph. They have the artistic temperament. They yearn for music and color and gaiety. They give wampum to the hand-organ man and the four-legged chicken in the tent when they’re months behind with the grocery and the breadfruit tree.’</p>
-			<p>“ ‘Then,’ says I, ‘we’ll export canned music to the Latins; but I’m mindful of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Julius Caesar’s account of ’em where he says: “<i xml:lang="es">Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est</i>;” which is the same as to say, “We will need all of our gall in devising means to tree them parties.” ’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘Then,’ says I, ‘we’ll export canned music to the Latins; but I’m mindful of <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Julius Caesar’s account of ’em where he says: “<i xml:lang="es">Omnia Gallia in tres partes divisa est</i>”; which is the same as to say, “We will need all of our gall in devising means to tree them parties.” ’</p>
 			<p>“I hated to make a show of education; but I was disinclined to be overdone in syntax by a mere Indian, a member of a race to which we owe nothing except the land on which the United States is situated.</p>
 			<p>“We bought a fine phonograph in Texarkana⁠—one of the best make⁠—and half a trunkful of records. We packed up, and took the T. and P. for New Orleans. From that celebrated centre of molasses and disfranchised coon songs we took a steamer for South America.</p>
 			<p>“We landed at Solitas, forty miles up the coast from here. ’Twas a palatable enough place to look at. The houses were clean and white; and to look at ’em stuck around among the scenery they reminded you of hard-boiled eggs served with lettuce. There was a block of skyscraper mountains in the suburbs; and they kept pretty quiet, like they had crept up there and were watching the town. And the sea was remarking ‘Sh-sh-sh’ on the beach; and now and then a ripe coconut would drop kerblip in the sand; and that was all there was doing. Yes, I judge that town was considerably on the quiet. I judge that after Gabriel quits blowing his horn, and the car starts, with Philadelphia swinging to the last strap, and Pine Gully, Arkansas, hanging onto the rear step, this town of Solitas will wake up and ask if anybody spoke.</p>
@@ -37,16 +37,16 @@
 			<p>“Well, for two days Homer P. Mellinger did the honors. That man cut ice in Anchuria. He was It. He was the Royal Kafoozlum. If me and Henry was babes in the wood, he was a Robin Redbreast from the topmost bough. Him and me and Henry Horsecollar locked arms, and toted that phonograph around, and had wassail and diversions. Everywhere we found doors open we went inside and set the machine going, and Mellinger called upon the people to observe the artful music and his two lifelong friends, the Señors Americanos. The opera chorus was agitated with esteem, and followed us from house to house. There was a different kind of drink to be had with every tune. The natives had acquirements of a pleasant thing in the way of a drink that gums itself to the recollection. They chop off the end of a green coconut, and pour in on the juice of it French brandy and other adjuvants. We had them and other things.</p>
 			<p>“Mine and Henry’s money was counterfeit. Everything was on Homer P. Mellinger. That man could find rolls of bills concealed in places on his person where Hermann the Wizard couldn’t have conjured out a rabbit or an omelette. He could have founded universities, and made orchid collections, and then had enough left to purchase the colored vote of his country. Henry and me wondered what his graft was. One evening he told us.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Boys,’ said he, ‘I’ve deceived you. You think I’m a painted butterfly; but in fact I’m the hardest worked man in this country. Ten years ago I landed on its shores; and two years ago on the point of its jaw. Yes, I guess I can get the decision over this ginger cake commonwealth at the end of any round I choose. I’ll confide in you because you are my countrymen and guests, even if you have assaulted my adopted shores with the worst system of noises ever set to music.</p>
-			<p>“ ‘My job is private secretary to the president of this republic; and my duties are running it. I’m not headlined in the bills, but I’m the mustard in the salad dressing just the same. There isn’t a law goes before Congress, there isn’t a concession granted, there isn’t an import duty levied but what H. P. Mellinger he cooks and seasons it. In the front office I fill the president’s inkstand and search visiting statesmen for dirks and dynamite; but in the back room I dictate the policy of the government. You’d never guess in the world how I got my pull. It’s the only graft of its kind on earth. I’ll put you wise. You remember the old top-liner in the copy book⁠—“Honesty is the Best Policy”? That’s it. I’m working honesty for a graft. I’m the only honest man in the republic. The government knows it; the people know it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors know it. I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he gets it. If outside capital buys a concession it gets the goods. I run a monopoly of square dealing here. There’s no competition. If Colonel Diogenes were to flash his lantern in this precinct he’d have my address inside of two minutes. There isn’t big money in it, but it’s a sure thing, and lets a man sleep of nights.’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘My job is private secretary to the president of this republic; and my duties are running it. I’m not headlined in the bills, but I’m the mustard in the salad dressing just the same. There isn’t a law goes before Congress, there isn’t a concession granted, there isn’t an import duty levied but what <abbr class="name">H. P.</abbr> Mellinger he cooks and seasons it. In the front office I fill the president’s inkstand and search visiting statesmen for dirks and dynamite; but in the back room I dictate the policy of the government. You’d never guess in the world how I got my pull. It’s the only graft of its kind on earth. I’ll put you wise. You remember the old top-liner in the copy book⁠—“Honesty is the Best Policy”? That’s it. I’m working honesty for a graft. I’m the only honest man in the republic. The government knows it; the people know it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors know it. I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he gets it. If outside capital buys a concession it gets the goods. I run a monopoly of square dealing here. There’s no competition. If Colonel Diogenes were to flash his lantern in this precinct he’d have my address inside of two minutes. There isn’t big money in it, but it’s a sure thing, and lets a man sleep of nights.’</p>
 			<p>“Thus Homer P. Mellinger made oration to me and Henry Horsecollar. And, later, he divested himself of this remark:</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Boys, I’m to hold a soirée this evening with a gang of leading citizens, and I want your assistance. You bring the musical corn sheller and give the affair the outside appearance of a function. There’s important business on hand, but it mustn’t show. I can talk to you people. I’ve been pained for years on account of not having anybody to blow off and brag to. I get homesick sometimes, and I’d swap the entire perquisites of office for just one hour to have a stein and a caviar sandwich somewhere on Thirty-fourth Street, and stand and watch the street cars go by, and smell the peanut roaster at old Giuseppe’s fruit stand.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘there’s fine caviar at Billy Renfrew’s café, corner of Thirty-fourth and⁠—’</p>
-			<p>“ ‘God knows it,’ interrupts Mellinger, ‘and if you’d told me you knew Billy Renfrew I’d have invented tons of ways of making you happy. Billy was my side-kicker in New York. There is a man who never knew what crooked was. Here I am working Honesty for a graft, but that man loses money on it. Carrambos! I get sick at times of this country. Everything’s rotten. From the executive down to the coffee pickers, they’re plotting to down each other and skin their friends. If a mule driver takes off his hat to an official, that man figures it out that he’s a popular idol, and sets his pegs to stir up a revolution and upset the administration. It’s one of my little chores as private secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix the kibosh before they break out and scratch the paint off the government property. That’s why I’m down here now in this mildewed coast town. The governor of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise. I’ve got every one of their names, and they’re invited to listen to the phonograph tonight, compliments of H. P. M. That’s the way I’ll get them in a bunch, and things are on the programme to happen to them.’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘God knows it,’ interrupts Mellinger, ‘and if you’d told me you knew Billy Renfrew I’d have invented tons of ways of making you happy. Billy was my side-kicker in New York. There is a man who never knew what crooked was. Here I am working Honesty for a graft, but that man loses money on it. <i xml:lang="es">Carrambos!</i> I get sick at times of this country. Everything’s rotten. From the executive down to the coffee pickers, they’re plotting to down each other and skin their friends. If a mule driver takes off his hat to an official, that man figures it out that he’s a popular idol, and sets his pegs to stir up a revolution and upset the administration. It’s one of my little chores as private secretary to smell out these revolutions and affix the kibosh before they break out and scratch the paint off the government property. That’s why I’m down here now in this mildewed coast town. The governor of the district and his crew are plotting to uprise. I’ve got every one of their names, and they’re invited to listen to the phonograph tonight, compliments of <abbr class="name">H. P. M.<abbr> That’s the way I’ll get them in a bunch, and things are on the programme to happen to them.’</p>
 			<p>“We three were sitting at table in the cantina of the Purified Saints. Mellinger poured out wine, and was looking some worried; I was thinking.</p>
-			<p>“ ‘They’re a sharp crowd,’ he says, kind of fretful. ‘They’re capitalized by a foreign syndicate after rubber, and they’re loaded to the muzzle for bribing. I’m sick,’ goes on Mellinger, ‘of comic opera. I want to smell East River and wear suspenders again. At times I feel like throwing up my job, but I’m d⁠–n fool enough to be sort of proud of it. “There’s Mellinger,” they say here. “<i xml:lang="es">Por Dios!</i> you can’t touch him with a million.” I’d like to take that record back and show it to Billy Renfrew some day; and that tightens my grip whenever I see a fat thing that I could corral just by winking one eye⁠—and losing my graft. By ⸺, they can’t monkey with me. They know it. What money I get I make honest and spend it. Some day I’ll make a pile and go back and eat caviar with Billy. Tonight I’ll show you how to handle a bunch of corruptionists. I’ll show them what Mellinger, private secretary, means when you spell it with the cotton and tissue paper off.’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘They’re a sharp crowd,’ he says, kind of fretful. ‘They’re capitalized by a foreign syndicate after rubber, and they’re loaded to the muzzle for bribing. I’m sick,’ goes on Mellinger, ‘of comic opera. I want to smell East River and wear suspenders again. At times I feel like throwing up my job, but I’m d⁠⸺n fool enough to be sort of proud of it. “There’s Mellinger,” they say here. “<i xml:lang="es">Por Dios!</i> you can’t touch him with a million.” I’d like to take that record back and show it to Billy Renfrew some day; and that tightens my grip whenever I see a fat thing that I could corral just by winking one eye⁠—and losing my graft. By ⸺, they can’t monkey with me. They know it. What money I get I make honest and spend it. Some day I’ll make a pile and go back and eat caviar with Billy. Tonight I’ll show you how to handle a bunch of corruptionists. I’ll show them what Mellinger, private secretary, means when you spell it with the cotton and tissue paper off.’</p>
 			<p>“Mellinger appears shaky, and breaks his glass against the neck of the bottle.</p>
 			<p>“I says to myself, ‘White man, if I’m not mistaken there’s been a bait laid out where the tail of your eye could see it.’</p>
-			<p>“That night, according to arrangements, me and Henry took the phonograph to a room in a ‘dobe house in a dirty side street, where the grass was knee high. ’Twas a long room, lit with smoky oil lamps. There was plenty of chairs, and a table at the back end. We set the phonograph on the table. Mellinger was there, walking up and down, disturbed in his predicaments. He chewed cigars and spat ’em out, and he bit the thumb nail of his left hand.</p>
+			<p>“That night, according to arrangements, me and Henry took the phonograph to a room in a ’dobe house in a dirty side street, where the grass was knee high. ’Twas a long room, lit with smoky oil lamps. There was plenty of chairs, and a table at the back end. We set the phonograph on the table. Mellinger was there, walking up and down, disturbed in his predicaments. He chewed cigars and spat ’em out, and he bit the thumb nail of his left hand.</p>
 			<p>“By and by the invitations to the musicale came sliding in by pairs and threes and spade flushes. Their colour was of a diversity, running from a three-days’ smoked meerschaum to a patent-leather polish. They were as polite as wax, being devastated with enjoyments to give Señor Mellinger the good evenings. I understood their Spanish talk⁠—I ran a pumping engine two years in a Mexican silver mine, and had it pat⁠—but I never let on.</p>
 			<p>“Maybe fifty of ’em had come, and was seated, when in slid the king bee, the governor of the district. Mellinger met him at the door, and escorted him to the grand stand. When I saw that Latin man I knew that Mellinger, private secretary, had all the dances on his card taken. That was a big, squashy man, the colour of a rubber overshoe, and he had an eye like a head waiter’s.</p>
 			<p>“Mellinger explained, fluent, in the Castilian idioms, that his soul was disconcerted with joy at introducing to his respected friends America’s greatest invention, the wonder of the age. Henry got the cue and run on an elegant brass-band record and the festivities became initiated. The governor man had a bit of English under his hat, and when the music was choked off he says:</p>
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@
 			<p>“The governor man then draws a package wrapped in paper from his pocket, and lays it on the table by Mellinger’s hand.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘In that you will find fifty thousand dollars in money of your country. You can do nothing against us, but you can be worth that for us. Go back to the capital and obey our instructions. Take that money now. We trust you. You will find with it a paper giving in detail the work you will be expected to do for us. Do not have the unwiseness to refuse.’</p>
 			<p>“The governor man paused, with his eyes fixed on Mellinger, full of expressions and observances. I looked at Mellinger, and was glad Billy Renfrew couldn’t see him then. The sweat was popping out on his forehead, and he stood dumb, tapping the little package with the ends of his fingers. The colorado-maduro gang was after his graft. He had only to change his politics, and stuff five fingers in his inside pocket.</p>
-			<p>“Henry whispers to me and wants the pause in the programme interpreted. I whisper back: ‘H. P. is up against a bribe, senator’s size, and the coons have got him going.’ I saw Mellinger’s hand moving closer to the package. ‘He’s weakening,’ I whispered to Henry. ‘We’ll remind him,’ says Henry, ‘of the peanut-roaster on Thirty-fourth Street, New York.’</p>
+			<p>“Henry whispers to me and wants the pause in the programme interpreted. I whisper back: ‘<abbr class="name">H. P.</abbr> is up against a bribe, senator’s size, and the coons have got him going.’ I saw Mellinger’s hand moving closer to the package. ‘He’s weakening,’ I whispered to Henry. ‘We’ll remind him,’ says Henry, ‘of the peanut-roaster on Thirty-fourth Street, New York.’</p>
 			<p>“Henry stooped down and got a record from the basketful we’d brought, slid it in the phonograph, and started her off. It was a cornet solo, very neat and beautiful, and the name of it was ‘Home, Sweet Home.’ Not one of them fifty odd men in the room moved while it was playing, and the governor man kept his eyes steady on Mellinger. I saw Mellinger’s head go up little by little, and his hand came creeping away from the package. Not until the last note sounded did anybody stir. And then Homer P. Mellinger takes up the bundle of boodle and slams it in the governor man’s face.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘That’s my answer,’ says Mellinger, private secretary, ‘and there’ll be another in the morning. I have proofs of conspiracy against every man of you. The show is over, gentlemen.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘There’s one more act,’ puts in the governor man. ‘You are a servant, I believe, employed by the president to copy letters and answer raps at the door. I am governor here. <i xml:lang="es">Señores</i>, I call upon you in the name of the cause to seize this man.’</p>

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@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 			<p>“You may fetch me a glass of lager beer,” he said, in response to the discreet questioning of the servitor.</p>
 			<p>The eyes of the rathskeller were upon him. He was as fresh as a collard and as ingenuous as a hay rake. He let his eye rove about the place as one who regards, big-eyed, hogs in the potato patch. His gaze rested at length upon Miss Carrington. He rose and went to her table with a lateral, shining smile and a blush of pleased trepidation.</p>
 			<p>“How’re ye, Miss Posie?” he said in accents not to be doubted. “Don’t ye remember me⁠—Bill Summers⁠—the Summerses that lived back of the blacksmith shop? I reckon I’ve growed up some since ye left Cranberry Corners.</p>
-			<p>“ ‘Liza Perry ‘lowed I might see ye in the city while I was here. You know ‘Liza married Benny Stanfield, and she says⁠—”</p>
+			<p>“ ‘Liza Perry ’lowed I might see ye in the city while I was here. You know ‘Liza married Benny Stanfield, and she says⁠—”</p>
 			<p>“Ah, say!” interrupted Miss Carrington, brightly, “Lize Perry is never married⁠—what! Oh, the freckles of her!”</p>
 			<p>“Married in June,” grinned the gossip, “and livin’ in the old Tatum Place. Ham Riley perfessed religion; old <abbr>Mrs.</abbr> Blithers sold her place to Cap’n Spooner; the youngest Waters girl run away with a music teacher; the courthouse burned up last March; your uncle Wiley was elected constable; Matilda Hoskins died from runnin’ a needle in her hand, and Tom Beedle is courtin’ Sallie Lathrop⁠—they say he don’t miss a night but what he’s settin’ on their porch.”</p>
 			<p>“The walleyed thing!” exclaimed Miss Carrington, with asperity. “Why, Tom Beedle once⁠—say, you folks, excuse me a while⁠—this is an old friend of mine⁠—<abbr>Mr.</abbr>⁠—what was it? Yes, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Summers⁠—<abbr>Mr.</abbr> Goldstein, <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ricketts, <abbr>Mr.</abbr>⁠— Oh, what’s yours? ‘Johnny”ll do⁠—come on over here and tell me some more.”</p>

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@@ -34,7 +34,7 @@
 			<p>At length the wounded man opened his eyes. After a blank space he again could see and hear and feel and think. Turning his eyes about, he found himself lying on a wooden bench. A tall man with a perplexed countenance, wearing a big badge with “City Marshal” engraved upon it, stood over him. A little old woman in black, with a wrinkled face and sparkling black eyes, was holding a wet handkerchief against one of his temples. He was trying to get these facts fixed in his mind and connected with past events, when the old woman began to talk.</p>
 			<p>“There now, great, big, strong man! That bullet never tetched ye! Jest skeeted along the side of your head and sort of paralysed ye for a spell. I’ve heerd of sech things afore; cun-cussion is what they names it. Abel Wadkins used to kill squirrels that way⁠—barkin’ ’em, Abe called it. You jest been barked, sir, and you’ll be all right in a little bit. Feel lots better already, don’t ye! You just lay still a while longer and let me bathe your head. You don’t know me, I reckon, and ‘tain’t surprisin’ that you shouldn’t. I come in on that train from Alabama to see my son. Big son, ain’t he? Lands! you wouldn’t hardly think he’d ever been a baby, would ye? This is my son, sir.”</p>
 			<p>Half turning, the old woman looked up at the standing man, her worn face lighting with a proud and wonderful smile. She reached out one veined and calloused hand and took one of her son’s. Then smiling cheerily down at the prostrate man, she continued to dip the handkerchief, in the waiting-room tin washbasin and gently apply it to his temple. She had the benevolent garrulity of old age.</p>
-			<p>“I ain’t seen my son before,” she continued, “in eight years. One of my nephews, Elkanah Price, he’s a conductor on one of them railroads and he got me a pass to come out here. I can stay a whole week on it, and then it’ll take me back again. Jest think, now, that little boy of mine has got to be a officer⁠—a city marshal of a whole town! That’s somethin’ like a constable, ain’t it? I never knowed he was a officer; he didn’t say nothin’ about it in his letters. I reckon he thought his old mother’d be skeered about the danger he was in. But, laws! I never was much of a hand to git skeered. ‘Tain’t no use. I heard them guns a-shootin’ while I was gettin’ off them cars, and I see smoke a-comin’ out of the depot, but I jest walked right along. Then I see son’s face lookin’ out through the window. I knowed him at oncet. He met me at the door, and squeezes me ‘most to death. And there you was, sir, a-lyin’ there jest like you was dead, and I ‘lowed we’d see what might be done to help sot you up.”</p>
+			<p>“I ain’t seen my son before,” she continued, “in eight years. One of my nephews, Elkanah Price, he’s a conductor on one of them railroads and he got me a pass to come out here. I can stay a whole week on it, and then it’ll take me back again. Jest think, now, that little boy of mine has got to be a officer⁠—a city marshal of a whole town! That’s somethin’ like a constable, ain’t it? I never knowed he was a officer; he didn’t say nothin’ about it in his letters. I reckon he thought his old mother’d be skeered about the danger he was in. But, laws! I never was much of a hand to git skeered. ‘Tain’t no use. I heard them guns a-shootin’ while I was gettin’ off them cars, and I see smoke a-comin’ out of the depot, but I jest walked right along. Then I see son’s face lookin’ out through the window. I knowed him at oncet. He met me at the door, and squeezes me ’most to death. And there you was, sir, a-lyin’ there jest like you was dead, and I ’lowed we’d see what might be done to help sot you up.”</p>
 			<p>“I think I’ll sit up now,” said the concussion patient. “I’m feeling pretty fair by this time.”</p>
 			<p>He sat, somewhat weakly yet, leaning against the wall. He was a rugged man, big-boned and straight. His eyes, steady and keen, seemed to linger upon the face of the man standing so still above him. His look wandered often from the face he studied to the marshal’s badge upon the other’s breast.</p>
 			<p>“Yes, yes, you’ll be all right,” said the old woman, patting his arm, “if you don’t get to cuttin’ up agin, and havin’ folks shooting at you. Son told me about you, sir, while you was layin’ senseless on the floor. Don’t you take it as meddlesome fer an old woman with a son as big as you to talk about it. And you mustn’t hold no grudge ag’in’ my son for havin’ to shoot at ye. A officer has got to take up for the law⁠—it’s his duty⁠—and them that acts bad and lives wrong has to suffer. Don’t blame my son any, sir⁠—‘tain’t his fault. He’s always been a good boy⁠—good when he was growin’ up, and kind and ‘bedient and well-behaved. Won’t you let me advise you, sir, not to do so no more? Be a good man, and leave liquor alone and live peaceably and goodly. Keep away from bad company and work honest and sleep sweet.”</p>

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@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<section id="the-shock" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">The Shock</h2>
-			<p>Man with a very pale face, wearing a woolen comforter and holding a slender stick in his hand, staggered into a Houston drug store yesterday and leaned against the counter, holding the other hand tightly against his breast.</p>
+			<p>A man with a very pale face, wearing a woolen comforter and holding a slender stick in his hand, staggered into a Houston drug store yesterday and leaned against the counter, holding the other hand tightly against his breast.</p>
 			<p>The clerk got a graduating glass, and poured an ounce of spiritus frumenti into it quickly, and handed it to him. The man drank it at a gulp.</p>
 			<p>“Feel better?” asked the clerk.</p>
 			<p>“A little. Don’t know when I had such a shock. I can hardly stand. Just a little more, now—”</p>

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@@ -17,8 +17,7 @@
 			<p>“Nary repent.”</p>
 			<p>“And you will continue to visit upon them the horrible suffering of being burned to death?”</p>
 			<p>“If the occasion demands it.”</p>
-			<p>“Well, then, gentlemen, since you are so determined, I want to sell you a few gross of the cheapest matches you ever laid your eyes upon.</p>
-			<p>Step out to the wagon and see them. Warranted not to go out in a strong wind, and to strike on anything, wood, bricks, glass, bloomers, boot soles and iron. How many boxes will you take, gentlemen?”</p>
+			<p>“Well, then, gentlemen, since you are so determined, I want to sell you a few gross of the cheapest matches you ever laid your eyes upon. Step out to the wagon and see them. Warranted not to go out in a strong wind, and to strike on anything, wood, bricks, glass, bloomers, boot soles and iron. How many boxes will you take, gentlemen?”</p>
 		</section>
 	</body>
 </html>

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@@ -9,7 +9,7 @@
 		<section id="the-sunday-excursionist" epub:type="volume se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">The Sunday Excursionist</h2>
 			<p>Somebody⁠—who it was doesn’t make any difference⁠—has said something like the following: “There is something grand in the grief of the Common People, but there is no sadder sight on earth than that of a Philistine enjoying himself.”</p>
-			<p>If a man would realize the truth of this, let him go on a Sunday excursion. The male Sunday excursionist enjoys himself, as the darkies say, “a gwine and a cornin’.” No other being on earth can hold quite so much bubbling and vociferous joy. The welkin that would not ring when the Sunday excursionist opens his escape valve is not worth a cent. Six days the Sunday excursionist labors and does his work, but he does his best to refute the opponents of the theory of the lato Charles Darwin. He occupies all the vacant seats in the car with his accomplices, and lets his accursed good nature spray over the rest of the passengers. He is so infernally happy that he wants everybody, to the brakeman on the rear car, to know it. He is so devilish agreeable, so perniciously jolly and so abominably entertaining that people who were bom with or have acquired brains love him most vindictively.</p>
+			<p>If a man would realize the truth of this, let him go on a Sunday excursion. The male Sunday excursionist enjoys himself, as the darkies say, “a gwine and a cornin’.” No other being on earth can hold quite so much bubbling and vociferous joy. The welkin that would not ring when the Sunday excursionist opens his escape valve is not worth a cent. Six days the Sunday excursionist labors and does his work, but he does his best to refute the opponents of the theory of the late Charles Darwin. He occupies all the vacant seats in the car with his accomplices, and lets his accursed good nature spray over the rest of the passengers. He is so infernally happy that he wants everybody, to the brakeman on the rear car, to know it. He is so devilish agreeable, so perniciously jolly and so abominably entertaining that people who were bom with or have acquired brains love him most vindictively.</p>
 			<p>People who become enamored of the Sunday excursionist are apt to grow insanely jealous, and have been known to rise up and murder him when a stranger enters the car and he proceeds to repeat his funny remarks for the benefit of a fresh audience.</p>
 			<p>The female Sunday excursionist generally accompanies him. She brings her laugh with her, and does a turn in the pauses of his low comedy work. She never by any accident misplaces her laugh or allows it to get out of curl. It ripples naturally and conforms readily to the size of the car. She puts on the male Sunday excursionist’s hat, and he puts on hers, and if the other passengers are feeling worse than usual, they sing “The Swanee River.” There is enough woe and sorrow in the world without augmenting it in this way.</p>
 			<p>Men who have braved the deepest troubles and emerged unscathed from the heaviest afflictions have gone down with a shriek of horror and despair before the fatal hilarity of the Sunday excursionist. There is no escape from his effects.</p>

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@@ -25,8 +25,8 @@
 			<p>“Judge, don’t you give him that air paper yit. ‘Tain’t all settled, nohow. I got to have my rights first. I got to have my ali-money. ‘Tain’t no kind of a way to do fur a man to divo’ce his wife ‘thout her havin’ a cent fur to do with. I’m a-layin’ off to be a-goin’ up to brother Ed’s up on Hogback Mount’in. I’m bound fur to hev a pa’r of shoes and some snuff and things besides. Ef Rance kin affo’d a divo’ce, let him pay me ali-money.”</p>
 			<p>Ransie Bilbro was stricken to dumb perplexity. There had been no previous hint of alimony. Women were always bringing up startling and unlooked-for issues.</p>
 			<p>Justice Benaja Widdup felt that the point demanded judicial decision. The authorities were also silent on the subject of alimony. But the woman’s feet were bare. The trail to Hogback Mountain was steep and flinty.</p>
-			<p>“Ariela Bilbro,” he asked, in official tones, “how much did you ‘low would be good and sufficient ali-money in the case befo’ the co’t.”</p>
-			<p>“I ‘lowed,” she answered, “fur the shoes and all, to say five dollars. That ain’t much fur ali-money, but I reckon that’ll git me to up brother Ed’s.”</p>
+			<p>“Ariela Bilbro,” he asked, in official tones, “how much did you ’low would be good and sufficient ali-money in the case befo’ the co’t.”</p>
+			<p>“I ’lowed,” she answered, “fur the shoes and all, to say five dollars. That ain’t much fur ali-money, but I reckon that’ll git me to up brother Ed’s.”</p>
 			<p>“The amount,” said the Justice, “air not onreasonable. Ransie Bilbro, you air ordered by the co’t to pay the plaintiff the sum of five dollars befo’ the decree of divo’ce air issued.”</p>
 			<p>“I hain’t no mo’ money,” breathed Ransie, heavily. “I done paid you all I had.”</p>
 			<p>“Otherwise,” said the Justice, looking severely over his spectacles, “you air in contempt of co’t.”</p>

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@@ -43,9 +43,9 @@
 			<p>“Then and there those Colombians took your friend Barney, sir, stripped him of the insignia of his rank, consisting of a pair of brass knuckles and a canteen of rum, and dragged him before a military court. The presiding general went through the usual legal formalities that sometimes cause a case to hang on the calendar of a South American military court as long as ten minutes. He asked me my age, and then sentenced me to be shot.</p>
 			<p>“They woke up the court interpreter, an American named Jenks, who was in the rum business and vice versa, and told him to translate the verdict.</p>
 			<p>“Jenks stretched himself and took a morphine tablet.</p>
-			<p>“ ‘You’ve got to back up against th’ ‘dobe, old man,’ says he to me. ‘Three weeks, I believe, you get. Haven’t got a chew of fine-cut on you, have you?’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘You’ve got to back up against th’ ’dobe, old man,’ says he to me. ‘Three weeks, I believe, you get. Haven’t got a chew of fine-cut on you, have you?’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Translate that again, with footnotes and a glossary,’ says I. ‘I don’t know whether I’m discharged, condemned, or handed over to the Gerry Society.’</p>
-			<p>“ ‘Oh,’ says Jenks, ‘don’t you understand? You’re to be stood up against a ‘dobe wall and shot in two or three weeks⁠—three, I think, they said.’</p>
+			<p>“ ‘Oh,’ says Jenks, ‘don’t you understand? You’re to be stood up against a ’dobe wall and shot in two or three weeks⁠—three, I think, they said.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Would you mind asking ’em which?’ says I. ‘A week don’t amount to much after you’re dead, but it seems a real nice long spell while you are alive.’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘It’s two weeks,’ says the interpreter, after inquiring in Spanish of the court. ‘Shall I ask ’em again?’</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Let be,’ says I. ‘Let’s have a stationary verdict. If I keep on appealing this way they’ll have me shot about ten days before I was captured. No, I haven’t got any fine-cut.’</p>

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@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Why He Hesitated</h2>
 			<p>A man with a worn, haggard countenance that showed traces of deep sorrow and suffering rushed excitedly up the stairs into the editorial rooms of the Post.</p>
 			<p>The literary editor was alone in his corner and the man threw himself into a chair near by and said:</p>
-			<p>“Excuse me, sir, for inflicting my troubles upon you, but I must unbosom myself to someone. I am the unhappiest of men. Two months ago, in a quiet little town in Eastern Texas, there was a family dwelling in the midst of peace and contentment. Hezekiah Skinner was the head of that family, and he almost idolized his wife, who appeared to completely return his affection. Alas, sir, she was deceiving him. Her protestations of love were but honeyed lies, intended to beguile and blind him. She had become infatuated with William Wagstaff, a neighbor, who had insidiously planned to capture her affections. She listened to WagstafPs pleadings and fled with him, leaving her husband with a wrecked home and a broken heart. Can you not feel for me, sir?”</p>
+			<p>“Excuse me, sir, for inflicting my troubles upon you, but I must unbosom myself to someone. I am the unhappiest of men. Two months ago, in a quiet little town in Eastern Texas, there was a family dwelling in the midst of peace and contentment. Hezekiah Skinner was the head of that family, and he almost idolized his wife, who appeared to completely return his affection. Alas, sir, she was deceiving him. Her protestations of love were but honeyed lies, intended to beguile and blind him. She had become infatuated with William Wagstaff, a neighbor, who had insidiously planned to capture her affections. She listened to Wagstaff’s pleadings and fled with him, leaving her husband with a wrecked home and a broken heart. Can you not feel for me, sir?”</p>
 			<p>“I do, indeed,” said the literary editor. “I can conceive the agony, the sorrow, the deep suffering that you must have felt.”</p>
 			<p>“For two months,” continued the man, “the home of Hezekiah Skinner has been desolate, and this woman and Wagstaff have been flying from his wrath.”</p>
 			<p>“What do you intend to do?” asked the literary editor.</p>