Three of a kind Author:Richard Burton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE COMING OF NUMBER THREE THE coming of the dog Dun was in this wise. One day, in the bleak white of midwinter, Phil was standing at a particularly win... more »dswept corner, a cross-way of traffic where the sale of newspapers to home- returning toilers was keenest after five o'clock in the afternoon. He was crying in his clear treble and with the phonetics peculiar to his craft: " Here y're, Evenin' Post, Extry: Tribyune, all about the big fire: I-talian earthquake, five hundred swallowed up alive." In the dream of world peace which to-day sets a few prescient souls aflame, I wonder if they include a kind of peace, less martial yet equally desirable: that which begins at home and means that our daily prints can be hawked with the same profit without raucous-voiced newsboys fouling the air with their cries of lust, murder and sudden disaster — just the sort of thing from which poor humanity would flee when it goes forth of a morning fresh from sleep and with hope at heart, or as it goes home to rest and take comfort after the strain of the working hours ? Think of the relief, the joy, of hearing such corner calls as these: " Here y're ! Restoration of kidnapped boy! Just out! Special: Millionaire's gift to the blind! Big sensation: Honest thief in State's Prison! Extry: Hero saves a railroad train! " Really, when you stop to think of it, there are a lot of dramatic occurrences in a day, doings which are neither grim nor terrible: acts that encourage humanity in the triumphal march towards better things. Mayhap the day will come when we shall no longer be asked to breakfast with disaster and sup on horrors. Meanwhile, the yellow journal feeds itself fat on such food; which is where it differs from a yellow dog. Suddenly, at Phil's feet stood a little animal looking up at ...« less