THE OLD ARMY GAME

Another character has stepped from the pages of history into the spotlight of publicity and that none other than the Cumaean Sybil, a lady old at her trade when the glory of Rome was undimmed by northern indiscretions and Aeneas was neither pious nor peregrinating. For she was among the first to practice what W. C. Fields might well describe as--the old army game.

For the sybyl was a seeress of no mean ability. Somewhat absent minded and a trifle vaporish, she nevertheless, had legions at her call--and enjoyed greater power than any modern mystic has dared profess. And now that her records are to be made public--now that the famous leaves are to be gathered by the grammarians and what note of Italy, one wonders how well this early priestess of the occult did her duty by her trade.

Yet psychologists, phrenologists, philologists and wits will never gain even from their tall copies of her work the quintessence of her prophecy--that is dead. For open sesames exist to Italian caves and to the heart of man--but woman, and a sybyl at that will never reveal much to the learned of the world--not a woman ancient as the Cumaean lady--and such an early exponent of the old army game.