In my
youth the monarchs of England had ceased to touch for the evil,
but there was no occasion for this diffidence: they could have
cured it forty-nine times in fifty.
Well, when the priest had been droning for three hours, and the
good king polishing the evidences, and the sick were still pressing
forward as plenty as ever, I got to feeling intolerably bored.
I was sitting by an open window not far from the canopy of state.
For the five hundredth time a patient stood forward to have his
repulsivenesses stroked; again those words were being droned out:
"they shall lay their hands on the sick"--when outside there rang
clear as a clarion a note that enchanted my soul and tumbled
thirteen worthless centuries about my ears: "Camelot _Weekly
Hosannah and Literary Volcano!_--latest irruption--only two cents
--all about the big miracle in the Valley of Holiness!" One greater
than kings had arrived--the newsboy. But I was the only person
in all that throng who knew the meaning of this mighty birth, and
what this imperial magician was come into the world to do.
I dropped a nickel out of the window and got my paper; the
Adam-newsboy of the world went around the corner to get my change;
is around the corner yet. It was delicious to see a newspaper
again, yet I was conscious of a secret shock when my eye fell upon
the first batch of display head-lines.
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