Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 August 1884 — Before Breakfast. [ARTICLE]

Before Breakfast.

“I van h off,” said the Czar this morning as he rolled out of his patent Nihi-list-proof sleeping safe and felt to see if any nitro-glyoerine had been put in the toes of his boots, “how many poisoned letters came by the 6 a. m. mail?” “Ninety-seven, your Most Illustrious Highness.” “Have the police discovered any plans to blow up the palace?” “Only twelve up to daybreak, Supreme Ruler.” “H’m, things are getting safer. How many men with bombs have been arrested about the roval quarters ?” “But seventeen, Mighty Lord of Siberia.” “And how about the conspiracies of students to assassinate me ?” “All the students in the empire have been exiled. O, Arbitrator of the Destinies of Mankind.” “Good. Have any of the cooks been found putting arsenic in my food ?” “Only a little scullion boy this morning, and he don’t count, Master of the World and of the Sideral System." “Have any of my confidential attendants been found to be high cockalorums in the ranks of the Nihilists?” “Only a few this morning, hardly worth mentioning, Exalted Emperor and Impereur of all the Russias.” “Better yet Ivanhoff, does the telegraph tell of any new uprisings in different parts of the empire?" “There are but three minor rebellions and a couple of Jewish massacres reported this morning, not enough to cause a second thought, O, Originator of all that is Good and Beneficent.” “Well, if this is the state of affairs, I think I may venture to get up. Ivanhoff, telephone for five regiments to fill the corridors of the palace, and when they come you may unlock the combination of my sleeping safe. For breakfast I will have eggs boiled in the shell; they are safest; and see that the cook who prepares them is made to breakfast on a portion of them. Ah, bv the way, order that services of praise oe held in the churches for the unprecedented peace and quietness that prevails in the empire. How my people love me 1” “ ’Tie done, Grand Mogul of the Earth and Planets.— Cincinnati Times-Star.