Tweak semantics

src/epub/text/a-municipal-report.xhtml

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
 			<p>East is East, and West is San Francisco, according to Californians. Californians are a race of people; they are not merely inhabitants of a State. They are the Southerners of the West. Now, Chicagoans are no less loyal to their city; but when you ask them why, they stammer and speak of lake fish and the new Odd Fellows Building. But Californians go into detail.</p>
 			<p>Of course they have, in the climate, an argument that is good for half an hour while you are thinking of your coal bills and heavy underwear. But as soon as they come to mistake your silence for conviction, madness comes upon them, and they picture the city of the Golden Gate as the Bagdad of the New World. So far, as a matter of opinion, no refutation is necessary. But, dear cousins all (from Adam and Eve descended), it is a rash one who will lay his finger on the map and say: “In this town there can be no romance⁠—what could happen here?” Yes, it is a bold and a rash deed to challenge in one sentence history, romance, and Rand and McNally.</p>
 			<blockquote>
-				<p><b>Nashville</b>⁠—A city, port of delivery, and the capital of the State of Tennessee, is on the Cumberland River and on the <abbr>N. C. &amp; St. L.</abbr> and the <abbr>L. &amp; N.</abbr> railroads. This city is regarded as the most important educational centre in the South.</p>
+				<p><b>Nashville</b>⁠—A city, port of delivery, and the capital of the State of Tennessee, is on the Cumberland River and on the <abbr>N. C. &amp; <abbr>St.</abbr> L.</abbr> and the <abbr>L. &amp; N.</abbr> railroads. This city is regarded as the most important educational centre in the South.</p>
 			</blockquote>
 			<p>I stepped off the train at 8 <abbr class="time eoc">a.m.</abbr> Having searched the thesaurus in vain for adjectives, I must, as a substitution, hie me to comparison in the form of a recipe.</p>
 			<p>Take a London fog 30 parts; malaria 10 parts; gas leaks 20 parts; dewdrops gathered in a brick yard at sunrise, 25 parts; odor of honeysuckle 15 parts. Mix.</p>

src/epub/text/a-poor-rule.xhtml

@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@
 			<p>The first was an artificial product known as Bryan Jacks⁠—a name that had obviously met with reverses. Jacks was the outcome of paved cities. He was a small man made of some material resembling flexible sandstone. His hair was the color of a brick Quaker meetinghouse; his eyes were twin cranberries; his mouth was like the aperture under a drop-letters-here sign.</p>
 			<p>He knew every city from Bangor to San Francisco, thence north to Portland, thence <abbr class="compass">S.</abbr> 45 <abbr class="compass">E.</abbr> to a given point in Florida. He had mastered every art, trade, game, business, profession, and sport in the world, had been present at, or hurrying on his way to, every headline event that had ever occurred between oceans since he was five years old. You might open the atlas, place your finger at random upon the name of a town, and Jacks would tell you the front names of three prominent citizens before you could close it again. He spoke patronizingly and even disrespectfully of Broadway, Beacon Hill, Michigan, Euclid, and Fifth Avenues, and the <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis Four Courts. Compared with him as a cosmopolite, the Wandering Jew would have seemed a mere hermit. He had learned everything the world could teach him, and he would tell you about it.</p>
 			<p>I hate to be reminded of Pollok’s “Course of Time,” and so do you; but every time I saw Jacks I would think of the poet’s description of another poet by the name of <abbr class="name">G. G.</abbr> Byron who “Drank early; deeply drank⁠—drank draughts that common millions might have quenched; then died of thirst because there was no more to drink.”</p>
-			<p>That fitted Jacks, except that, instead of dying, he came to Paloma, which was about the same thing. He was a telegrapher and station-and express-agent at seventy-five dollars a month. Why a young man who knew everything and could do everything was content to serve in such an obscure capacity I never could understand, although he let out a hint once that it was as a personal favor to the president and stockholders of the <abbr>S. P. Ry.</abbr> <abbr class="eoc">Co.</abbr></p>
+			<p>That fitted Jacks, except that, instead of dying, he came to Paloma, which was about the same thing. He was a telegrapher and station-and express-agent at seventy-five dollars a month. Why a young man who knew everything and could do everything was content to serve in such an obscure capacity I never could understand, although he let out a hint once that it was as a personal favor to the president and stockholders of the <abbr class="name">S. P.</abbr> <abbr>Ry.</abbr> <abbr class="eoc">Co.</abbr></p>
 			<p>One more line of description, and I turn Jacks over to you. He wore bright blue clothes, yellow shoes, and a bow tie made of the same cloth as his shirt.</p>
 			<p>My rival <abbr>No.</abbr> 2 was Bud Cunningham, whose services had been engaged by a ranch near Paloma to assist in compelling refractory cattle to keep within the bounds of decorum and order. Bud was the only cowboy off the stage that I ever saw who looked like one on it. He wore the sombrero, the chaps, and the handkerchief tied at the back of his neck.</p>
 			<p>Twice a week Bud rode in from the Val Verde Ranch to sup at the Parisian Restaurant. He rode a many-high-handed Kentucky horse at a tremendously fast lope, which animal he would rein up so suddenly under the big mesquite at the corner of the brush shelter that his hoofs would plough canals yards long in the loam.</p>

src/epub/text/bestseller.xhtml

@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@
 				<p>“O-ho!” I said. “So you’ve taken time enough off from your plate-glass to have a romance?”</p>
 				<p>“No, no,” said John. “No romance⁠—nothing like that! But I’ll tell you about it.</p>
 				<p>“I was on the southbound, going to Cincinnati, about eighteen months ago, when I saw, across the aisle, the finest-looking girl I’d ever laid eyes on. Nothing spectacular, you know, but just the sort you want for keeps. Well, I never was up to the flirtation business, either handkerchief, automobile, postage-stamp, or doorstep, and she wasn’t the kind to start anything. She read a book and minded her business, which was to make the world prettier and better just by residing on it. I kept on looking out of the side doors of my eyes, and finally the proposition got out of the Pullman class into a case of a cottage with a lawn and vines running over the porch. I never thought of speaking to her, but I let the plate-glass business go to smash for a while.</p>
-				<p>“She changed cars at Cincinnati, and took a sleeper to Louisville over the <abbr>L. and N.</abbr> There she bought another ticket, and went on through Shelbyville, Frankfort, and Lexington. Along there I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came along when they pleased, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular, except to keep on the track and the right of way as much as possible. Then they began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped altogether. I’ll bet Pinkerton would outbid the plate-glass people for my services any time if they knew how I managed to shadow that young lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of her.</p>
+				<p>“She changed cars at Cincinnati, and took a sleeper to Louisville over the <abbr>L. &amp; N.</abbr> There she bought another ticket, and went on through Shelbyville, Frankfort, and Lexington. Along there I began to have a hard time keeping up with her. The trains came along when they pleased, and didn’t seem to be going anywhere in particular, except to keep on the track and the right of way as much as possible. Then they began to stop at junctions instead of towns, and at last they stopped altogether. I’ll bet Pinkerton would outbid the plate-glass people for my services any time if they knew how I managed to shadow that young lady. I contrived to keep out of her sight as much as I could, but I never lost track of her.</p>
 				<p>“The last station she got off at was away down in Virginia, about six in the afternoon. There were about fifty houses and four hundred niggers in sight. The rest was red mud, mules, and speckled hounds.</p>
 				<p>“A tall old man, with a smooth face and white hair, looking as proud as Julius Caesar and Roscoe Conkling on the same postcard, was there to meet her. His clothes were frazzled, but I didn’t notice that till later. He took her little satchel, and they started over the plank-walks and went up a road along the hill. I kept along a piece behind ’em, trying to look like I was hunting a garnet ring in the sand that my sister had lost at a picnic the previous Saturday.</p>
 				<p>“They went in a gate on top of the hill. It nearly took my breath away when I looked up. Up there in the biggest grove I ever saw was a tremendous house with round white pillars about a thousand feet high, and the yard was so full of rosebushes and box-bushes and lilacs that you couldn’t have seen the house if it hadn’t been as big as the Capitol at Washington.</p>

src/epub/text/book-reviews.xhtml

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@
 	<body epub:type="bodymatter z3998:fiction">
 		<article id="book-reviews" epub:type="se:short-story">
 			<h2 epub:type="title">Book Reviews</h2>
-			<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Unabridged Dictionary by Noah Webster</i>, <abbr>L. L. D. F. R. S. X. Y. Z.</abbr></p>
+			<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Unabridged Dictionary by Noah Webster</i>, <abbr class="initialism">L.L.D.F.R.S.X.Y.Z.</abbr></p>
 			<p>We find on our table quite an exhaustive treatise on various subjects, written in <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster’s well-known, lucid, and piquant style. There is not a dull line between the covers of the book. The range of subjects is wide, and the treatment light and easy without being flippant. A valuable feature of the work is the arranging of the articles in alphabetical order, thus facilitating the finding of any particular word desired. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster’s vocabulary is large, and he always uses the right word in the right place. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster’s work is thorough and we predict that he will be heard from again.</p>
 			<p><i epub:type="se:name.publication.book">Houston’s City Directory</i>, by Morrison and Fourmy.</p>
 			<p>This new book has the decided merit of being non-sensational. In these days of erratic and ultra-imaginative literature of the modern morbid self-analytical school it is a relief to peruse a book with so little straining after effect, so well balanced, and so pure in sentiment. It is a book that a man can place in the hands of the most innocent member of his family with the utmost confidence. Its material is healthy, and its literary style excellent, as it adheres to the methods used with such thrilling effect by <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Webster in his famous dictionary, viz: alphabetical arrangement.</p>

src/epub/text/seats-of-the-haughty.xhtml

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@
 			<p>“ ‘Him?’ says the secretary. ‘Well, no. He’s got a big, fat wife in the harem named Bad Dora that he don’t like. I believe he intends to saddle her up and ride her up and down the boardwalk in the Bulbul Gardens a few times every day. You haven’t got a pair of extra-long spurs you could throw in on the deal, have you?’ Yes, sir; there’s mighty few real roughriders among the royal sports these days.”</p>
 			<p>As soon as Lucullus Polk got cool enough I picked him up, and with no greater effort than you would employ in persuading a drowning man to clutch a straw, I inveigled him into accompanying me to a cool corner in a dim café.</p>
 			<p>And it came to pass that man-servants set before us brewage; and Lucullus Polk spake unto me, relating the wherefores of his beleaguering the antechambers of the princes of the earth.</p>
-			<p>“Did you ever hear of the <abbr>S.A. &amp; A.P.</abbr> Railroad in Texas? Well, that don’t stand for Samaritan Actor’s Aid Philanthropy. I was down that way managing a summer bunch of the gum and syntax-chewers that play the Idlewild Parks in the Western hamlets. Of course, we went to pieces when the soubrette ran away with a prominent barber of Beeville. I don’t know what became of the rest of the company. I believe there were some salaries due; and the last I saw of the troupe was when I told them that forty-three cents was all the treasury contained. I say I never saw any of them after that; but I heard them for about twenty minutes. I didn’t have time to look back. But after dark I came out of the woods and struck the <abbr>S.A. &amp; A.P.</abbr> agent for means of transportation. He at once extended to me the courtesies of the entire railroad, kindly warning me, however, not to get aboard any of the rolling stock.</p>
+			<p>“Did you ever hear of the <abbr class="initialism">S.A.</abbr> &amp; <abbr class="initialism">A.P.</abbr> Railroad in Texas? Well, that don’t stand for Samaritan Actor’s Aid Philanthropy. I was down that way managing a summer bunch of the gum and syntax-chewers that play the Idlewild Parks in the Western hamlets. Of course, we went to pieces when the soubrette ran away with a prominent barber of Beeville. I don’t know what became of the rest of the company. I believe there were some salaries due; and the last I saw of the troupe was when I told them that forty-three cents was all the treasury contained. I say I never saw any of them after that; but I heard them for about twenty minutes. I didn’t have time to look back. But after dark I came out of the woods and struck the <abbr class="initialism">S.A.</abbr> &amp; <abbr class="initialism">A.P.</abbr> agent for means of transportation. He at once extended to me the courtesies of the entire railroad, kindly warning me, however, not to get aboard any of the rolling stock.</p>
 			<p>“About ten the next morning I steps off the ties into a village that calls itself Atascosa City. I bought a thirty-cent breakfast and a ten-cent cigar, and stood on the Main Street jingling the three pennies in my pocket⁠—dead broke. A man in Texas with only three cents in his pocket is no better off than a man that has no money and owes two cents.</p>
 			<p>“One of luck’s favourite tricks is to soak a man for his last dollar so quick that he don’t have time to look it. There I was in a swell <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis tailor-made, blue-and-green plaid suit, and an eighteen-carat sulphate-of-copper scarf-pin, with no hope in sight except the two great Texas industries, the cotton fields and grading new railroads. I never picked cotton, and I never cottoned to a pick, so the outlook had ultramarine edges.</p>
 			<p>“All of a sudden, while I was standing on the edge of the wooden sidewalk, down out of the sky falls two fine gold watches in the middle of the street. One hits a chunk of mud and sticks. The other falls hard and flies open, making a fine drizzle of little springs and screws and wheels. I looks up for a balloon or an airship; but not seeing any, I steps off the sidewalk to investigate.</p>
@@ -35,10 +35,10 @@
 			<p>“ ‘You must have knocked around a right smart,’ goes on this oil Grease-us. ‘I shouldn’t be surprised if you have saw towns more livelier than what Atascosa City is. Sometimes it seems to me that there ought to be some more ways of having a good time than there is here, ’specially when you’ve got plenty of money and don’t mind spending it.’</p>
 			<p>“Then this Mother Cary’s chick of the desert sits down by me and we hold a conversationfest. It seems that he was money-poor. He’d lived in ranch camps all his life; and he confessed to me that his supreme idea of luxury was to ride into camp, tired out from a roundup, eat a peck of Mexican beans, hobble his brains with a pint of raw whisky, and go to sleep with his boots for a pillow. When this barge-load of unexpected money came to him and his pink but perky partner, George, and they hied themselves to this clump of outhouses called Atascosa City, you know what happened to them. They had money to buy anything they wanted; but they didn’t know what to want. Their ideas of spendthriftiness were limited to three⁠—whisky, saddles, and gold watches. If there was anything else in the world to throw away fortunes on, they had never heard about it. So, when they wanted to have a hot time, they’d ride into town and get a city directory and stand in front of the principal saloon and call up the population alphabetically for free drinks. Then they would order three or four new California saddles from the storekeeper, and play crack-loo on the sidewalk with twenty-dollar gold pieces. Betting who could throw his gold watch the farthest was an inspiration of George’s; but even that was getting to be monotonous.</p>
 			<p>“Was I on to the opportunity? Listen.</p>
-			<p>“In thirty minutes I had dashed off a word picture of metropolitan joys that made life in Atascosa City look as dull as a trip to Coney Island with your own wife. In ten minutes more we shook hands on an agreement that I was to act as his guide, interpreter and friend in and to the aforesaid wassail and amenity. And Solomon Mills, which was his name, was to pay all expenses for a month. At the end of that time, if I had made good as director-general of the rowdy life, he was to pay me one thousand dollars. And then, to clinch the bargain, we called the roll of Atascosa City and put all of its citizens except the ladies and minors under the table, except one man named Horace Westervelt <abbr>St.</abbr> Clair. Just for that we bought a couple of hatfuls of cheap silver watches and egged him out of town with ’em. We wound up by dragging the harness-maker out of bed and setting him to work on three new saddles; and then we went to sleep across the railroad track at the depot, just to annoy the <abbr>S.A. &amp; A.P.</abbr> Think of having seventy-five thousand dollars and trying to avoid the disgrace of dying rich in a town like that!</p>
+			<p>“In thirty minutes I had dashed off a word picture of metropolitan joys that made life in Atascosa City look as dull as a trip to Coney Island with your own wife. In ten minutes more we shook hands on an agreement that I was to act as his guide, interpreter and friend in and to the aforesaid wassail and amenity. And Solomon Mills, which was his name, was to pay all expenses for a month. At the end of that time, if I had made good as director-general of the rowdy life, he was to pay me one thousand dollars. And then, to clinch the bargain, we called the roll of Atascosa City and put all of its citizens except the ladies and minors under the table, except one man named Horace Westervelt <abbr>St.</abbr> Clair. Just for that we bought a couple of hatfuls of cheap silver watches and egged him out of town with ’em. We wound up by dragging the harness-maker out of bed and setting him to work on three new saddles; and then we went to sleep across the railroad track at the depot, just to annoy the <abbr class="initialism">S.A.</abbr> &amp; <abbr class="initialism">A.P.</abbr> Think of having seventy-five thousand dollars and trying to avoid the disgrace of dying rich in a town like that!</p>
 			<p>“The next day George, who was married or something, started back to the ranch. Me and Solly, as I now called him, prepared to shake off our moth balls and wing our way against the arc-lights of the joyous and tuneful East.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘No way-stops,’ says I to Solly, ‘except long enough to get you barbered and haberdashed. This is no Texas feet shampetter,’ says I, ‘where you eat chili-concarne-con-huevos and then holler “Whoopee!” across the plaza. We’re now going against the real high life. We’re going to mingle with the set that carries a Spitz, wears spats, and hits the ground in high spots.’</p>
-			<p>“Solly puts six thousand dollars in century bills in one pocket of his brown ducks, and bills of lading for ten thousand dollars on Eastern banks in another. Then I resume diplomatic relations with the <abbr>S.A. &amp; A.P.</abbr>, and we hike in a northwesterly direction on our circuitous route to the spice gardens of the Yankee Orient.</p>
+			<p>“Solly puts six thousand dollars in century bills in one pocket of his brown ducks, and bills of lading for ten thousand dollars on Eastern banks in another. Then I resume diplomatic relations with the <abbr class="initialism">S.A.</abbr> &amp; <abbr class="initialism">A.P.</abbr>, and we hike in a northwesterly direction on our circuitous route to the spice gardens of the Yankee Orient.</p>
 			<p>“We stopped in San Antonio long enough for Solly to buy some clothes, and eight rounds of drinks for the guests and employees of the Menger Hotel, and order four Mexican saddles with silver trimmings and white Angora <i xml:lang="es">suaderos</i> to be shipped down to the ranch. From there we made a big jump to <abbr>St.</abbr> Louis. We got there in time for dinner; and I put our thumbprints on the register of the most expensive hotel in the city.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Now,’ says I to Solly, with a wink at myself, ‘here’s the first dinner-station we’ve struck where we can get a real good plate of beans.’ And while he was up in his room trying to draw water out of the gas-pipe, I got one finger in the buttonhole of the head waiter’s Tuxedo, drew him apart, inserted a two-dollar bill, and closed him up again.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘Frankoyse,’ says I, ‘I have a pal here for dinner that’s been subsisting for years on cereals and short stogies. You see the chef and order a dinner for us such as you serve to Dave Francis and the general passenger agent of the Iron Mountain when they eat here. We’ve got more than Bernhardt’s tent full of money; and we want the nosebags crammed with all the Chief Deveries de cuisine. Object is no expense. Now, show us.’</p>

src/epub/text/the-lotus-and-the-cockleburrs.xhtml

@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
 					<p class="signature" epub:type="z3998:sender">John De Graffenreid Atwood,</p>
 					<p><abbr class="initialism">U.S.</abbr> Consul at Vibora</p>
 				</footer>
-				<p epub:type="z3998:postscript"><abbr>P.S.</abbr>⁠—Hello! Uncle Obadiah. How’s the old burg racking along? What would the government do without you and me? Look out for a green-headed parrot and a bunch of bananas soon, from your old friend</p>
+				<p epub:type="z3998:postscript"><abbr class="initialism">P.S.</abbr>⁠—Hello! Uncle Obadiah. How’s the old burg racking along? What would the government do without you and me? Look out for a green-headed parrot and a bunch of bananas soon, from your old friend</p>
 				<p class="signature" epub:type="z3998:sender">Johnny</p>
 			</blockquote>
 			<p>“I throw in that postscript,” explained the consul, “so Uncle Obadiah won’t take offence at the official tone of the letter! Now, Billy, you get that correspondence fixed up and send Pancho to the <i xml:lang="es">estafeta</i> with it. The <i epub:type="se:name.vessel.ship">Ariadne</i> takes the mail out tomorrow if they make up that load of fruit today.”</p>

src/epub/text/the-passing-of-black-eagle.xhtml

@@ -19,10 +19,10 @@
 			<p>He gave the sweets to the youngster, and had the satisfaction of perceiving that confidence was established. After that it was easy to obtain leadership of the expedition; to take the investment by the hand and lead it to a nice drug store he knew of in the same block. There Chicken, with a parental air, passed over the dollar and called for the medicine, while the boy crunched his candy, glad to be relieved of the responsibility of the purchase. And then the successful investor, searching his pockets, found an overcoat button⁠—the extent of his winter trousseau⁠—and, wrapping it carefully, placed the ostensible change in the pocket of confiding juvenility. Setting the youngster’s face homeward, and patting him benevolently on the back⁠—for Chicken’s heart was as soft as those of his feathered namesakes⁠—the speculator quit the market with a profit of 1,700 percent on his invested capital.</p>
 			<p>Two hours later an Iron Mountain freight engine pulled out of the railroad yards, Texas bound, with a string of empties. In one of the cattle cars, half buried in excelsior, Chicken lay at ease. Beside him in his nest was a quart bottle of very poor whisky and a paper bag of bread and cheese. <abbr>Mr.</abbr> Ruggles, in his private car, was on his trip south for the winter season.</p>
 			<p>For a week that car was trundled southward, shifted, laid over, and manipulated after the manner of rolling stock, but Chicken stuck to it, leaving it only at necessary times to satisfy his hunger and thirst. He knew it must go down to the cattle country, and San Antonio, in the heart of it, was his goal. There the air was salubrious and mild; the people indulgent and long-suffering. The bartenders there would not kick him. If he should eat too long or too often at one place they would swear at him as if by rote and without heat. They swore so drawlingly, and they rarely paused short of their full vocabulary, which was copious, so that Chicken had often gulped a good meal during the process of the vituperative prohibition. The season there was always springlike; the plazas were pleasant at night, with music and gaiety; except during the slight and infrequent cold snaps one could sleep comfortably out of doors in case the interiors should develop inhospitability.</p>
-			<p>At Texarkana his car was switched to the <abbr>I. and G. N.</abbr> Then still southward it trailed until, at length, it crawled across the Colorado bridge at Austin, and lined out, straight as an arrow, for the run to San Antonio.</p>
+			<p>At Texarkana his car was switched to the <abbr>I. &amp; G. N.</abbr> Then still southward it trailed until, at length, it crawled across the Colorado bridge at Austin, and lined out, straight as an arrow, for the run to San Antonio.</p>
 			<p>When the freight halted at that town Chicken was fast asleep. In ten minutes the train was off again for Laredo, the end of the road. Those empty cattle cars were for distribution along the line at points from which the ranches shipped their stock.</p>
 			<p>When Chicken awoke his car was stationary. Looking out between the slats he saw it was a bright, moonlit night. Scrambling out, he saw his car with three others abandoned on a little siding in a wild and lonesome country. A cattle pen and chute stood on one side of the track. The railroad bisected a vast, dim ocean of prairie, in the midst of which Chicken, with his futile rolling stock, was as completely stranded as was Robinson with his landlocked boat.</p>
-			<p>A white post stood near the rails. Going up to it, Chicken read the letters at the top, <abbr>S. A.</abbr> 90. Laredo was nearly as far to the south. He was almost a hundred miles from any town. Coyotes began to yelp in the mysterious sea around him. Chicken felt lonesome. He had lived in Boston without an education, in Chicago without nerve, in Philadelphia without a sleeping place, in New York without a pull, and in Pittsburg sober, and yet he had never felt so lonely as now.</p>
+			<p>A white post stood near the rails. Going up to it, Chicken read the letters at the top, <abbr>S.</abbr> <abbr>A.</abbr> 90. Laredo was nearly as far to the south. He was almost a hundred miles from any town. Coyotes began to yelp in the mysterious sea around him. Chicken felt lonesome. He had lived in Boston without an education, in Chicago without nerve, in Philadelphia without a sleeping place, in New York without a pull, and in Pittsburg sober, and yet he had never felt so lonely as now.</p>
 			<p>Suddenly through the intense silence, he heard the whicker of a horse. The sound came from the side of the track toward the east, and Chicken began to explore timorously in that direction. He stepped high along the mat of curly mesquite grass, for he was afraid of everything there might be in this wilderness⁠—snakes, rats, brigands, centipedes, mirages, cowboys, fandangoes, tarantulas, tamales⁠—he had read of them in the story papers. Rounding a clump of prickly pear that reared high its fantastic and menacing array of rounded heads, he was struck to shivering terror by a snort and a thunderous plunge, as the horse, himself startled, bounded away some fifty yards, and then resumed his grazing. But here was the one thing in the desert that Chicken did not fear. He had been reared on a farm; he had handled horses, understood them, and could ride.</p>
 			<p>Approaching slowly and speaking soothingly, he followed the animal, which, after its first flight, seemed gentle enough, and secured the end of the twenty-foot lariat that dragged after him in the grass. It required him but a few moments to contrive the rope into an ingenious nose-bridle, after the style of the Mexican <i xml:lang="es">borsal</i>. In another he was upon the horse’s back and off at a splendid lope, giving the animal free choice of direction. “He will take me somewhere,” said Chicken to himself.</p>
 			<p>It would have been a thing of joy, that untrammelled gallop over the moonlit prairie, even to Chicken, who loathed exertion, but that his mood was not for it. His head ached; a growing thirst was upon him; the “somewhere” whither his lucky mount might convey him was full of dismal peradventure.</p>
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@
 			<p>Later on, a deputation waited on Bud. They stood on one leg, chewed mesquite twigs and circumlocuted, for they hated to hurt his feelings. Bud foresaw their business, and made it easy for them. Bigger risks and larger profits was what they wanted.</p>
 			<p>The suggestion of Piggy’s about holding up a train had fired their imagination and increased their admiration for the dash and boldness of the instigator. They were such simple, artless, and custom-bound bush-rangers that they had never before thought of extending their habits beyond the running off of livestock and the shooting of such of their acquaintances as ventured to interfere.</p>
 			<p>Bud acted “on the level,” agreeing to take a subordinate place in the gang until Black Eagle should have been given a trial as leader.</p>
-			<p>After a great deal of consultation, studying of timetables, and discussion of the country’s topography, the time and place for carrying out their new enterprise was decided upon. At that time there was a feedstuff famine in Mexico and a cattle famine in certain parts of the United States, and there was a brisk international trade. Much money was being shipped along the railroads that connected the two republics. It was agreed that the most promising place for the contemplated robbery was at Espina, a little station on the <abbr>I. and G. N.</abbr>, about forty miles north of Laredo. The train stopped there one minute; the country around was wild and unsettled; the station consisted of but one house in which the agent lived.</p>
+			<p>After a great deal of consultation, studying of timetables, and discussion of the country’s topography, the time and place for carrying out their new enterprise was decided upon. At that time there was a feedstuff famine in Mexico and a cattle famine in certain parts of the United States, and there was a brisk international trade. Much money was being shipped along the railroads that connected the two republics. It was agreed that the most promising place for the contemplated robbery was at Espina, a little station on the <abbr>I. &amp; G. N.</abbr>, about forty miles north of Laredo. The train stopped there one minute; the country around was wild and unsettled; the station consisted of but one house in which the agent lived.</p>
 			<p>Black Eagle’s band set out, riding by night. Arriving in the vicinity of Espina they rested their horses all day in a thicket a few miles distant.</p>
 			<p>The train was due at Espina at 10:30 <abbr class="time">p.m.</abbr> They could rob the train and be well over the Mexican border with their booty by daylight the next morning.</p>
 			<p>To do Black Eagle justice, he exhibited no signs of flinching from the responsible honours that had been conferred upon him.</p>

src/epub/text/the-phonograph-and-the-graft.xhtml

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 			<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="la">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 <abbr>T. and P.</abbr> for New Orleans. From that celebrated centre of molasses and disfranchised coon songs we took a steamer for South America.</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 <abbr>T. &amp; P.</abbr> 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>
 			<p>“The captain went ashore with us, and offered to conduct what he seemed to like to call the obsequies. He introduced Henry and me to the United States Consul, and a roan man, the head of the Department of Mercenary and Licentious Dispositions, the way it read upon his sign.</p>
 			<p>“ ‘I touch here again a week from today,’ says the captain.</p>