"The Effrontery of Mr. Boggins"

"The Effrontery of Mr. Boggins"

While others saw a forest, Mr. Boggins, captain of industry, saw a burgeoning city of steel and glass and oil. He had already offended the ancient race of faeries who lived there by building a railroad that cut over both undergrowth and water. Prior to this epoch of effacement, all the faeries had to worry about was falling prey to the spiders' artifice. Now the noise of machinery threatened to breach their traditional silence and grace.

Eventually, all the tribes of faerie banded together and sent an ethereal parchment to Mr. Boggins, threatening violence if they should see him anywhere in their forest. Mr. Boggins, not one to truckle under harsh words, told his men to bring him there posthaste.

Mr. Boggins arrived via locomotive over the faeries' most sacred river. On phonographs, he played music so loud it scared away all the creatures nearby. But not the faeries. They loaded their bows with thorns and bee-stingers and opened fire. The arrows had no effect on the hide of the vessel, but a few connected with Mr. Boggins' bulging face and left him fatally wounded. He collapsed into the river.

But the man had prepared for this eventuality. As he lay dying, the men all came out with pistols and a Howitzer and opened fire into the trees. Scores of faeries fell, but the wee archers out-numbered them in a magical tongue. Eventually, the mortals were quashed. It was another victory in the war against the mortals, a war that was working well in the faeries' favor, whose realm dwarfed that of these industrious mortals.