get along best without; you can’t possibly spare any of the large countries; the question is how many of the little countries together would——*

    * You are digressing again,

    worse than ever! This thing

    has got to stop!

      The Reader.

    Oh, very well! If that’s the way the Reader feels about it it shall stop right here.

     If this little world to-night

      Suddenly should fall thro’ space

     In a hissing, headlong flight

      Shrivelling from off its face,

     As it falls into the sun,

      In an instant every trace

     Of the little crawling things—

      Ants, philosophers, and lice,

     Cattle, cockroaches, and kings,

      Beggars, millionaires, and mice,

     Men and maggots all as one

      As it falls into the sun—

     Who can say but at the same

      Instant from some planet far

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