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Python® for Cybersecurity
Using Python for Cyber Offense
and Defense

Howard E. Poston III

Copyright © 2022 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.

Published simultaneously in Canada.

978-­1-­119-­85064-­9
978-­1-­119-­85070-­0 (ebk.)
978-­1-­119-­85065-­6 (ebk.)

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To Rachel
 About the Author

Howard E. Poston III is a freelance consultant and content creator with a focus
on blockchain and cybersecurity. He has developed and taught more than a
dozen courses exploring and explaining various aspects of cybersecurity and
has written hundreds of articles on the subject on different outlets. Howard
Poston is also the author of several academic articles on security topics, and has
spoken on blockchain and cybersecurity at international security conferences.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to my technical editor, Ben Heruska, and the amazing team at Wiley
without whom this book would not have been possible.

iv
 About the Technical Editor

Benjamin Heruska is a military officer and computer engineer in the United

States Air Force, which he joined in 2008. He has diverse military engineering
experience across a broad range of computing disciplines, including embedded
RF systems development, IT and cybersecurity tool development, software
development, vulnerability analysis, cybersecurity incident response, big data
engineering and analytics, ICAM development, and technical leadership.

v
 Contents at a Glance

Introductionxvii
Chapter 1 Fulfilling Pre-­ATT&CK Objectives 1
Chapter 2 Gaining Initial Access 19
Chapter 3 Achieving Code Execution 39
Chapter 4 Maintaining Persistence 55
Chapter 5 Performing Privilege Escalation 77
Chapter 6 Evading Defenses 89
Chapter 7 Accessing Credentials 105
Chapter 8 Performing Discovery 125
Chapter 9 Moving Laterally 141
Chapter 10 Collecting Intelligence 157
Chapter 11 Implementing Command and Control 169
Chapter 12 Exfiltrating Data 183
Chapter 13 Achieving Impact 199
Index213

vii
 Contents

Introductionxvii
Chapter 1 Fulfilling Pre-­ATT&CK Objectives 1
Active Scanning 2
Scanning Networks with scapy 2
Implementing a SYN Scan in scapy 4
Performing a DNS Scan in scapy 5
Running the Code 5
Network Scanning for Defenders 6
Monitoring Traffic with scapy 7
Building Deceptive Responses 8
Running the Code 9
Search Open Technical Databases 9
Offensive DNS Exploration 10
Searching DNS Records 11
Performing a DNS Lookup 12
Reverse DNS Lookup 12
Running the Code 13
DNS Exploration for Defenders 13
Handling DNS Requests 15
Building a DNS Response 15
Running the Code 16
Summary17
Suggested Exercises 17
Chapter 2 Gaining Initial Access 19
Valid Accounts 20
Discovering Default Accounts 20
Accessing a List of Default Credentials 21
Starting SSH Connections in Python 22

ix
x Contents

Performing Telnet Queries in Python 23

Running the Code 24
Account Monitoring for Defenders 24
Introduction to Windows Event Logs 25
Accessing Event Logs in Python 28
Detecting Failed Logon Attempts 28
Identifying Unauthorized Access to Default Accounts 30
Running the Code 30
Replication Through Removable Media 31
Exploiting Autorun 31
Converting Python Scripts to Windows Executables 32
Generating an Autorun File 33
Setting Up the Removable Media 34
Running the Code 34
Detecting Autorun Scripts 34
Identifying Removable Drives 35
Finding Autorun Scripts 36
Detecting Autorun Processes 36
Running the Code 36
Summary37
Suggested Exercises 37
Chapter 3 Achieving Code Execution 39
Windows Management Instrumentation 40
Executing Code with WMI 40
Creating Processes with WMI 41
Launching Processes with PowerShell 41
Running the Code 42
WMI Event Monitoring for Defenders 42
WMI in Windows Event Logs 43
Accessing WMI Event Logs in Python 45
Processing Event Log XML Data 45
Running the Code 46
Scheduled Task/Job 47
Scheduling Malicious Tasks 47
Checking for Scheduled Tasks 48
Scheduling a Malicious Task 48
Running the Code 49
Task Scheduling for Defenders 50
Querying Scheduled Tasks 51
Identifying Suspicious Tasks 52
Running the Code 52
Summary53
Suggested Exercises 53
 Contents xi

Chapter 4 Maintaining Persistence 55

Boot or Logon Autostart Execution 56
Exploiting Registry Autorun 56
The Windows Registry and Autorun Keys 57
Modifying Autorun Keys with Python 60
Running the Code 61
Registry Monitoring for Defenders 62
Querying Windows Registry Keys 63
Searching the HKU Hive 64
Running the Code 64
Hijack Execution Flow 65
Modifying the Windows Path 65
Accessing the Windows Path 66
Modifying the Path 67
Running the Code 68
Path Management for Defenders 69
Detecting Path Modification via Timestamps 69
Enabling Audit Events 71
Monitoring Audit Logs 73
Running the Code 75
Summary76
Suggested Exercises 76
Chapter 5 Performing Privilege Escalation 77
Boot or Logon Initialization Scripts 78
Creating Malicious Logon Scripts 78
Achieving Privilege Escalation with Logon Scripts 79
Creating a Logon Script 79
Running the Code 79
Searching for Logon Scripts 80
Identifying Autorun Keys 81
Running the Code 81
Hijack Execution Flow 81
Injecting Malicious Python Libraries 82
How Python Finds Libraries 82
Creating a Python Library 83
Running the Code 83
Detecting Suspicious Python Libraries 83
Identifying Imports 85
Detecting Duplicates 85
Running the Code 86
Summary86
Suggested Exercises 87
xii Contents

Chapter 6 Evading Defenses 89

Impair Defenses 90
Disabling Antivirus 90
Disabling Antivirus Autorun 90
Terminating Processes 93
Creating Decoy Antivirus Processes 94
Catching Signals 95
Running the Code 95
Hide Artifacts 95
Concealing Files in Alternate Data Streams 96
Exploring Alternate Data Streams 96
Alternate Data Streams in Python 97
Running the Code 98
Detecting Alternate Data Streams 98
Walking a Directory with Python 99
Using PowerShell to Detect ADS 100
Parsing PowerShell Output 101
Running the Code 102
Summary102
Suggested Exercises 103
Chapter 7 Accessing Credentials 105
Credentials from Password Stores 106
Dumping Credentials from Web Browsers 106
Accessing the Chrome Master Key 108
Querying the Chrome Login Data Database 108
Parsing Output and Decrypting Passwords 109
Running the Code 109
Monitoring Chrome Passwords 110
Enabling File Auditing 110
Detecting Local State Access Attempts 111
Running the Code 113
Network Sniffing 114
Sniffing Passwords with scapy 114
Port-­Based Protocol Identification 116
Sniffing FTP Passwords 116
Extracting SMTP Passwords 117
Tracking Telnet Authentication State 119
Running the Code 121
Creating Deceptive Network Connections 121
Creating Decoy Connections 122
Running the Code 122
Summary123
Suggested Exercises 123
 Contents xiii

Chapter 8 Performing Discovery 125

Account Discovery 126
Collecting User Account Data 126
Identifying Administrator Accounts 127
Collecting User Account Information 128
Accessing Windows Password Policies 128
Running the Code 129
Monitoring User Accounts 130
Monitoring Last Login Times 130
Monitoring Administrator Login Attempts 131
Running the Code 132
File and Directory Discovery 133
Identifying Valuable Files and Folders 133
Regular Expressions for Data Discovery 135
Parsing Different File Formats 135
Running the Code 136
Creating Honeypot Files and Folders 136
Monitoring Decoy Content 136
Creating the Decoy Content 137
Running the Code 138
Summary138
Suggested Exercises 139
Chapter 9 Moving Laterally 141
Remote Services 142
Exploiting Windows Admin Shares 142
Enabling Full Access to Administrative Shares 143
Transferring Files via Administrative Shares 144
Executing Commands on Administrative Shares 144
Running the Code 144
Admin Share Management for Defenders 145
Monitoring File Operations 146
Detecting Authentication Attempts 147
Running the Code 148
Use Alternative Authentication Material 148
Collecting Web Session Cookies 149
Accessing Web Session Cookies 150
Running the Code 150
Creating Deceptive Web Session Cookies 151
Creating Decoy Cookies 151
Monitoring Decoy Cookie Usage 153
Running the Code 153
Summary154
Suggested Exercises 155
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 DIRTY MURPHY.

O
n Thursday a man known by the Castillian nom de plume of
Dirty Murphy, was engaged in digging out a frozen water-pipe
in front of the New York House, when the glowing inspiration
came upon him that the frozen earth could be blasted much easier
than it could be dug, so he drilled a hole down to the pipe and put in
a shot preparatory to lifting a large portion of the universe out by
the roots and laying bare the foundations of the earth.
John Humpfner, the ram-rod of the New York House, feared that
the explosion might break the large French plate glass windows of
his palatial hotel, and so put a wash tub over the blast. What the
exact notion of Mr. Humpfner was relative to the result in this case, I
am unable to say, but when the roar of the universal convulsion had
died away, and the result was examined by Mr. Humpfner and the
Count de Dirty Murphy, they looked surprised.
Instead of blowing out a large tract of land and laying bare the
entire water and gas system of the city, the blast blew out like a sick
fire-cracker with a loose fuse, and, taking the washtub with it, sailed
away into the realms of space. It crashed through the milky way and
passed on in its mad flight into the boundless stretch of the
unknown. Those who saw the affair and had no interest in the wash-
tub, enjoyed it very much, but to the incorporators and bondholders
who held the controlling interest in the tub, the whole thing seemed
a hollow mockery and a desolate, dreary waste. Don Miguel de Dirty
Murphy swooned on the spot. The hose has been playing on him
ever since, but he has not returned to consciousness. The later
geological formations have been washed away, and it is thought that
by working a night shift, prehistoric and volcanic encrustations will
be removed so that the pores may be opened and life and animation
return, but it is a long, tedious job, and the superintending geologist
is beginning to despair.
 A ROCKY MOUNTAIN SUNSET.

S
peaking of the hours of closing day reminds me that we have
recently witnessed some of the most brilliant and beautiful
sunsets here that I have ever seen. In justice to Wyoming, I
will say that she certainly deserves a word for the gorgeous splendor
of her summer sunset skies.
The air is perfectly pure, and at that hour the sighing zephyr
seems to have sighed about all it wants to and dies away to rest.
The pulse of tired Nature is almost still, and the luxurious sense of
rest is upon the face of the silent world. The god of day drops slowly
down the crimson west, as though he reluctantly bade adieu to the
grassy plains and rugged hills. Anon the golden bars of resplendent
light are shot across the deep blue of heaven, the fleecy clouds are
tipped and bordered with pale gold, while the heavy billows of
bronze are floating in a mighty ocean of the softest azure. The blue
grows deeper and the gold more dazzling. The scarlet becomes
intensified and the softened east takes up the magnificent reflection.
The hills and mountains are bathed in the beams of this occidental
splendor, and the landscape adorns itself in honor of nature's most
wonderful diurnal spectacle.
It is certainly the boss. These mountain sunsets in the pure, clear
air of Wyoming and Colorado, as thrilling triumphs of natural
loveliness, most unquestionably take the cake.
The Italian sunset is a good fair average sunset, but the admission
is too high. It also lacks expression and embonpoint, whatever that
may be.
May be it is not embonpoint which it lacks, but it is something of
that nature.
These beautiful sights awake the poet's soul within me, and on
one occasion I wrote a little ode or apostrophe to the sunset, which
was as sweet a little thing as I ever saw in the English language, but
the taxidermist spoiled it. He left it out in the hot sun while he was
stuffing a sage hen, and the poor little thing seemed to wilt and
retire from the public gaze.
 THE TEMPERATURE OF THE
BUMBLE-BEE.

A
recent article on bees says, "If you have noticed bees very
closely, you may have seen that they are not all alike in size."
I have noticed bees very closely indeed, during my life. In
fact I have several times been thrown into immediate juxtaposition
with them, and have had a great many opportunities to observe
their ways, and I am free to say that I have not been so forcibly
struck with the difference in their size as the noticeable difference in
their temperature.
I remember at one time of sitting by a hive watching the habits of
the bees, and thinking how industrious they were, and what a wide
difference there is between the toilsome life of the little insect, and
the enervating, aimless, idle and luxurious life of the newspaper
man, when an impulsive little bee lit in my hair. He seemed to be
feverish. Whereever he settled down he seemed to leave a hot
place. I learned afterward that it was a new kind of bee called the
anti-clinker base-burner bee.
O, yes, I have studied the ways of the bee very closely. He is
supposed to improve each shining hour. That's the great objection I
have to him. The bee has been thrown up to me a great deal during
my life, and the comparison was not flattering. It has been intimated
that I resembled the bee that sits on the piazza of the hive all
summer and picks his teeth, while the rest are getting in honey and
beeswax for the winter campaign.
 DRAWBACKS OF PUBLIC LIFE.

I
always like to tell anything that has the general effect of turning
the laugh on me, because then I know there will be no hard
feelings. It is very difficult to select any one who will stand
publicity when that publicity is more amusing to the average reader
than to the chief actor. Every little while I run out of men who enjoy
being written about in my chaste and cheerful vein. Then I hate to
come forward and take this position myself. It is not egotism, as
some might suppose. It is unselfishness and a manly feeling of self-
sacrifice.
Last year I consented to read the Declaration of Independence, as
my share of the programme, partially out of gallantry toward the
Goddess of Liberty, and partly to get a ride with the chaplain and
orator of the day, through the principal streets behind the band. It
was a very proud moment for me. I felt as though I was holding up
one corner of the national fabric myself, and I naturally experienced
a pardonable pride about it. I sat in the carriage with the compiled
laws of Wyoming under my arm, and looked like Daniel Webster
wrapped in a large bale of holy calm. At the grounds I found that
most everybody was on the speakers' stand, and the audience was
represented by a helpless and unhappy minority.
At a Fourth of July celebration it is wonderful how many great men
there are, and how they swarm on the speakers' platform. Then
there are generally about thirteen venerable gentlemen who do not
pretend to be great, but they cannot hear very well, so they get on
the speakers' stand to hear the same blood-curdling statements that
they have heard for a thousand years. While I was reading the little
burst of humor known as the Declaration, the staging gave way
under the accumulated weight of the Fourth Infantry band and
several hundred great men who had invited themselves to sit on the
platform. The Chaplain fell on top of me, and the orator of the day
on top of him. A pitcher of ice water tipped over on me, and the
water ran down my back. A piece of scantling and an alto horn took
me across the cerebellum, and as often as I tried to get up and
throw off the Chaplain and orator of the day and Fourth Infantry
band, the greased pig which had been shut up under the stand
temporarily, would run between my legs and throw me down again.
I never knew the reading of the Declaration of Independence to
have such a telling effect. I went home without witnessing the
closing exercises. I did not ride home in the carriage. I told the
committee that some poor, decrepit old woman might ride home in
my place. I needed exercise and an opportunity to commune with
myself.
As I walked home by an unfrequented way, I thought of the
growth and grandeur of the republic, and how I could get rid of the
lard that had been wiped on my clothes by the oleagineous pig. This
year, when the committee asked me to read the Declaration, I said
pleasantly but firmly that I would probably be busy on that day
soaking my head, and therefore would have to decline.
 THE GLAD, FREE LIFE OF THE
MINER.

I
n the spring the young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of
love. He also looks forward to some means by which he can
earn the bread and oleomargarine on which he can subsist.
There are several ways of doing this. Some take to agriculture and
spend the long days of golden summer among the clover blossoms
of the meadow, raking hay and hornets into large winrows, while
they sniff the refreshing odor of the mignonette and the morning
glory, and the boiling soft soap and potato bugs that have been
mashed into the sweet bye-and-bye. Others, by a straightforward
course become truthful newspaper men and amass untold wealth as
funny men. Others proclaim the glad news of salvation at so much a
proclaim.
Perhaps, however, the most exciting way to become wealthy in a
speedy manner and in a surprising style is that of the miner. He buys
some bacon, and tobacco, and flour, and whiskey, and a pick and
some chewing tobacco, and a shovel and some whiskey, and an axe
and some smoking tobacco and matches, and whiskey and blankets,
and giant powder, and goes to the mountains to get wealthy.
He works all day hard, walking up hill and down, across ravines
and rocky gulches, weary but happy and confident till night comes
down upon him and he goes home to camp, and around the fire he
enters the free-for-all lying match, and tired as he is gets away with
the prize for scrub-lying. I have met miners who would with a little
chance hold a pretty even race against the great stalwart army of
journalists. I do not say this intending to reflect upon the noble
profession of mining, for I have been taught to respect the pleasing
lie which is told in a harmless way, to cheer the great surging mass
of humanity who get tired of the same old truths that have been
handed down from generation to generation.
One man who ran against me for justice of the peace two years
ago and who, therefore, got left, is now independent, having sold
out a prospect in sight of town for a good figure, while I plug along
and tell the truth and have nothing under the broad blue dome of
heaven but $150 per month and my virtue. Of course virtue is its
own reward, but how little of glad unfettered mirthfulness it yields.
Sometimes I wish I had a little looser notions about what is right
and what is wrong. But it is too late now. I have become so
hardened in these upright ways that when I do wrong it pretty
nearly kills me.
This summer, however, I will get me a little blue jackass and put a
sawbuck on his back, and pack some select oysters and gum-drops,
and an upright piano, and a hammock, and some sheet music, and a
camera, and some ice and frosted cake, and a Brussels carpet, and a
tent on his back, and I will hie me to the mines, join the big
stampede, fall down a prospect hole 200 feet deep, and my faithful
jackass will pull me out, and I shall nearly freeze to death nights,
and starve to death days, and I will have lots of fun.
I like the glad, free mountain life. I have tried it. Once I went out
to the mountains and slept on the lap of mother earth. That is, I
advertised to sleep, but I couldn't quite catch on. I lay on my back
till two o'clock, A. M., looking up into the clear blue ether, while the
stars above were twinkling. After they had about twinkled
themselves out, I concluded I would not try to woo the drowsy god
any more. I got up and made a pint of coffee, and drank it so hot
that the alimentary canal was rolled together like a scroll. It felt as
though I had swallowed a large slice of melted perdition, but it didn't
warm me up any. Then I went up the mountain five miles to see the
sun rise. In about four hours it rose. So did the coffee that I drank at
two o'clock. Somehow the sunrise didn't seem to cheer me. It looked
murky and muddy; all nature seemed to be shrouded in gloom.
There was more gloom turned loose there than I have ever seen. I
wanted to go home. I needed some one to pity me and love me a
great deal. I needed rest and entire change of scene. I went away
from there because the associations were not pleasant; roughing it
doesn't seem to do me the required amount of good. I am too frail. I
need more of the comforts of civilization, and less wealth of wild,
majestic scenery. I find that my nature needs very little awe-
inspiring grandeur, and a good deal of woven wire mattress and
nutritious, digestible food.
 SOME THOUGHTS OF CHILDHOOD.

C
hildhood is the glad springtime of life. It is then that the seeds
of future greatness or startling mediocrity are sown.
If a boy has marked out a glowing future as an intellectual
giant, it is during these early years of his growth that he gets some
pine knots to burn in the evening, whereby he can read Herbert
Spencer and the Greek grammar, so that when he is in good society
he can say things that nobody can understand. This gives him an air
of mysterious greatness which soaks into those with whom he
comes in contact, and makes them respectful and unhappy while in
his presence.
Boys who intend to be railroad men should early begin to look
about them for some desirable method of expunging two or three
fingers and one thumb. Most boys can do this without difficulty.
Trying to pick a card out of a job press when it is in operation is a
good way. Most job presses feel gloomy and unhappy until they have
eaten the fingers off two or three boys. Then they go on with their
work cheerfully and even hilariously.
Boys who intend to lead an irreproachable life and be foremost in
every good word and work, should take unusual precautions to
secure perfect health and longevity. Good boys never know when
they are safe. Statistics show that the ratio of good boys who die,
compared to bad ones, is simply appalling.
There are only thirty-nine good boys left as we go to press, and
they are not feeling very well either.
The bad ones are all alive and very active.
The boy who stole my coal shovel last spring and went out into
the grave-yard and dug into a grave to find Easter eggs, is the
picture of health. He ought to live a long time yet, for he is in very
poor shape to be ushered in before the bar of judgment.
 When I was a child I was different from other boys in many
respects. I was always looking about to see what good I could do. I
am that way yet.
If my little brother wanted to go in swimming contrary to orders, I
was not strong enough to prevent him, but I would go in with him
and save him from a watery grave. I went in the water thousands of
times that way, and as a result he is alive to-day.
But he is ungrateful. He hardly ever mentions it now, but he
remembers the gordian knots that I tied in his shirts. He speaks of
them frequently. This shows the ingratitude and natural depravity of
the human heart.
Ah, what recompense have wealth and position for the unalloyed
joys of childhood, and how gladly to-day as I sit in the midst of my
oriental splendor and costly magnificence, and thoughtfully run my
fingers through my infrequent bangs, would I give it all, wealth,
position and fame, for one balmy, breezy day gathered from the
mellow haze of the long ago when I stood full knee-deep in the luke-
warm pool near my suburban home in the quiet dell, and allowed
the yielding and soothing mud and meek-eyed pollywogs to squirt up
between my dimpled toes.
 THE NEW ADJUSTABLE CAMPAIGN
SONG.

I
beg leave at this time to present to the public a melodious gem
of song which I am positive cannot fail to give satisfaction.
It will withstand the rigors of our mountain clime as well as
the heat and moisture of a lower altitude.
It is purely unpartisan, although it may be easily changed to any
shade of political opinion. It is cheap, portable and durable, and
filled with little pathetic passages that will add greatly to the
enthusiasm of presidential contests.
It is true that some harsh criticism has been called down upon this
little chunk of crystallized melody, as I may be pardoned for calling
it, and it has been suggested that it is too much fraught with a
gentle, soothing sense of vacuity, and that there is nothing in it
particularly one way or the other.
This I admit to be in a measure true. There is nothing in it as a
poem, but it must be borne in mind that this is not a poem. It is a
campaign song.
Campaign songs never have anything in them. They don't have to.
Editorials and speeches have to express human ideas and little
suggestions of original horse sense, but the campaign song is
generally distinguished by a wild, tumultuous torrent of attenuated
space.
They are like the sons of great men—we do not expect any show
of herculean intellectual acumen from them.
Directions.—Set up the song with the feed bar down and pitman
reversed. Then turn the thumbscrew that holds the asterisks in
place, take them out and lay them away in the upper case, and in
proper compartment.
 Next set up desirable candidate, unless you can get candidate to
set them up himself, slug the standing galley, oil the cross-head,
upset the tripod, loosen the crown sheet a little, so that the obvious
duplex will work easily in the lallygag eccentric, and turn on steam.
Should the box in which the lower case candidates are stored get
hot, sponge off and lubricate with castor oil, antifat and borax in
equal parts.
Keep this song in a cool place.

(Air—Rally Round the Flag, Boys.)

Oh, we'll gather from the hillsides,
We'll gather from the glen,
Shouting the battle cry of....,
And we'll round up our voters,
Our brave and trusty men,
Shouting the battle cry of....

Chorus.

Oh, our candidate forever,

Te doodle daddy a,
Down with old...,
Turn a foodie diddy a,
And we'll whoop de dooden do,
Fal de adden adden a,
And don't you never forget it.
Oh, we'll meet the craven foe
On the fall election day,
Shouting the battle cry of...,
And we'll try to let him know
That we're going to have our way,
Shouting the battle cry of,

Chorus.

Oh, our candidate forever, etc.

Oh, we're the people's friends,

As all can plainly see,
Shouting the battle cry of...,
And we'll whoop de dooden doo,
With our big majority,
And don't you never forget it.

Chorus.

Oh, our candidate forever, etc.

 SITTING ON ON A VENERABLE
JOKE.

N
ear St. Paul, on the Sioux City road, I met the ever-present
man from Leadville again.
I had met him before on every division of every railroad
that I had traveled over, but I nodded to him, and he began to tell
me all about Leadville.
He saw that I looked sad, and he cheered me up with little
prehistoric jokes that an antiquarian had given him years ago. Finally
he said:
"Leadville is mighty cold; it has such an all fired altitude, The
summer is very short and unreliable, and the winter long and severe.
"An old miner over in California gulch got off a pretty good joke
about the climate there. A friend asked him about the seasons at
Leadville, and he said that there they had nine months winter and
three months late in the fall."
Then he looked around to see me fall to pieces with mirth, but I
restrained myself and said:
"You will please excuse me for not laughing at that joke. I cannot
do it. It is too sacred.
"Do you think I would laugh at the bones of the Pilgrim Fathers,
where are they? or burst into wild hilarity over the grave of Noah
and his family?
"No, sir; their age and antiquity protect them. That is the way with
your Phoenician joke.
"Another reason why I cannot laugh at it is this: I am not a very
easy and extemporaneous laughter, anyway. I am generally
shrouded in gloom, especially when I am in hot pursuit of a wild and
skittish joke for my own use. It takes a good, fair, average joke that
hasn't been used much to make me laugh easy, and besides, I have
used up the fund of laugh that I had laid aside for that particular
joke. It has, in fact, overdrawn some now, and is behind.
"I do not wish to intrench on the fund that I have concluded to
offer as a purse for young jokes that have never made it in three
minutes.
"I want to encourage green jokes, too, that have never trotted in
harness before, and, besides, I must insist on using my scanty fund
of laugh on jokes of the nineteenth century. I have got to draw the
line somewhere.
"If I were making a collection of antique jokes of the vintage of
1400 years B. C., or arranging and classifying little bon-mots of the
time of Cleopatra or King Solomon, I would give you a handsome
sum for this one of yours, but I am just trying to worry along and
pay expenses, and trying to be polite to every one I meet, and
laughing at lots of things that I don't want to laugh at, and I am
going to quit it.
"That is why I have met your little witticism with cold and
heartless gravity."
 A HAIRBREADTH ESCAPE.

T
o-day I got shaved at a barber-shop, where I begged the
operator to kill me and put me out of my misery.
I have been accustomed to gentle care and thoughtfulness
at home, and my barber at Laramie handles me with the utmost
tenderness. I was, therefore, poorly prepared to meet the man who
this morning filled my soul with woe.
I know that I have not deserved this, for while others have
berated the poor barber and swore about his bad breath and never-
ending clatter and his general heartlessness, I have never said
anything that was not filled with child-like trust and hearty good will
toward him.
I have called the attention of the public to the fact that sometimes
customers had bad breath and were restless and mean while being
operated on, and then when they are all fixed up nicely, they put
their hats on and light a cigar and hold up their finger to the weary
barber and tell him that they will see him more subsequently.
Now, however, I feel differently.
This barber no doubt had never heard of me. He no doubt thought
I was an ordinary plug who didn't know anything about luxury.
I shall mark a copy of this paper and send it to him.
Then while he is reading it I will steal up behind him with a pick
handle and kill him. I want him to be reading this when I kill him,
because it will assist the coroner in arriving at the immediate cause
of his death.
The first whiff I took of this man's breath, I knew that he was
rum's maniac.
He had the Jim James in an advanced stage. Now, I don't object
to being shaved by a barber who is socially drunk, but when the
mad glitter of the maniac is in his eye and I can see that he is
debating the question of whether he will cut my head off and let it
drop over the back of the chair or choke me to death with a lather
brush, it makes me nervous and fidgetty.
This man made up his mind three times that he would kill me, and
some one came in just in time to save me.
His chair was near a window, and there was a hole in the blind, so
that when he was shaving the off side of my face he would turn my
head over in such a position that I could look up into the middle of
the sun. My attention had never before been called to the
appearance of the sun as it looks to the naked eye, and I was a
good deal surprised.
The more I looked into the very center of the great orb of day the
more I was filled with wonder at the might and power that could
create it. I began to pine for death immediately, so that I could be
far away among the heavenly bodies, and in a land where no barber
with the delirium triangles can ever enter.
This barber held my head down so that the sun could shine into
my darkened understanding, until I felt that my brain had melted
and was floating around and swashing about in my skull like warm
butter.
His hand was very unsteady, too. I lost faith in him on the start
when he cut off a mole under my chin and threw it into the spittoon.
I did not care very particularly for the mole, and did not need it
particularly, but at the same time I had not decided to take it off at
that time. In fact I had worn it so long that I had become attached
to it. It had also become attached to me.
That is why I could not restrain my tears when the barber cut it
off and then stepped back to the other end of the room to see how I
looked without it.
MYSELF, DR. TALMAGE, AND OTHER
DIVINES.
September 5, 1880.

I
am beginning to-day to keep a diary. It is not an agreeable task,
but I feel that the wild, glad bursts of unfettered thought which
surge through my ponderous mind ought to be embalmed in
eligible characters, and passed down to posterity.
The thought may arise in the mind of the reader that this is taking
a low and contemptible advantage of a posterity that never in word
or deed ever harmed me; but I care not. Other able men have
perpetrated their diaries upon me when I was not in a condition to
help myself, and now that I can hand down and transmit to nations
yet unborn, the same great heritage unimpaired, there is a sweet
consciousness of a revenge that has been fully glutted.
To day I have been to church. I do not speak of it as remarkable
at all, for wherever I am, whether at home or abroad, my first
thought is, where will I find a sanctuary?
The minister was quite classical and he pumped the congregation
so full of heathen mythology that he came very near forgetting that
he had a word to say on behalf of Christianity as the advance agent
of Zion.
I do not wish to say one word that would sound like irreverence
toward the cause which this man undertook to represent; but I want
to jot down a little thought or two relative to this exponent, so that I
may be placed squarely upon the record.
I have often thought when I have watched this class of ministers,
with one hand resting in a graceful and negligent posture on the
altar rail, while the self-conscious Demosthenes reeled off a 4th of
July prayer to the miserable, wretched and undone sinners before
him, how God has said that He is a jealous God; and I have
wondered if these prayers, arranged with great care to meet the
criticism of the worshippers, and with an off-hand disregard to the
feelings of the Almighty that is very cool and very refreshing indeed,
whether they ever lay hold of the throne of grace or not, and
whether they ever lift up mankind or make the world better.
Speaking of divines, reminds me of the very pleasant trip I had
over the Union Pacific on my way east with Brother Talmage. I call
him Brother Tannage because he called me brother occasionally. He
no doubt thought that in different walks of life, perhaps, but working
in the same direction, we were both laboring to make the world
better.
Brother Talmage, General Crook, myself and two or three other
eminent men together occupied the sleeper Boise City. Brother
Talmage and I one day were seized with the same irresistable desire,
at the same moment, to change our shirts. He was a little nearer the
wash-room than I was, so he got there first, and we stood up
together smiling at each other sweetly, with a clean shirt in our
hands, and didn't know exactly how to express ourselves.
I was the first to speak. I told the Doctor that it was of no
consequence particularly, and I would wait. He said no, I must not
wait for him, and insisted so cordially on my coming in there that we
went in together and tackled the mysteries of our toilet at the same
time.
It was pretty tough on me, for I had been accustomed while
peeling off a damp shirt to go through a few little vocal exercises
and dance around on one leg and howl.
Going from the mountains of Wyoming down into the tropical heat
of Nebraska made me perspire a good deal, and nothing but the firm
and irresistible restraint thrown about me by an eminent divine kept
me from swearing.
But the Doctor did not get mad. When he shoved his bald head
into his shirt a large smile was on his face, and when it emerged at
the top and he waved his arms above his head and struggled to
climb up into the shirt, so that he could look out over the
battlements, he was still smiling. He was not only smiling, but he
was smiling a good deal. Those who have seen Dr. Talmage smile
know now he throws his whole soul into it.
If I could jam my head up through a wilderness of shirt and starch
and saw off my windpipe as I looked out over the billowy, buttonless
mass, and still smile, as Dr. Talmage does, I would give all my broad
possessions in a moment.
This offer will hold good up to the 15th.
We got quite sociable and cordial toward the close, and I got the
Doctor to reach up as far as he could on my spinal column and bring
down the refractory end of a suspender, then I retaliated by going
down into his true inwardness after a collar button that had dropped
into oblivion.
While he was smiling with that glad, free smile of his, which he
takes along with him instead of baggage, he told me a pretty good
thing on the editor of the Herald of Salt Lake. He told it to me in
confidence, he said, because he knew he could rely on a newspaper
man. Then he laughed and seemed to think it was a good joke.
It seems that when Dr. Talmage was in Salt Lake, the Tribune
published what purported to be an interview between a reporter of
that paper and the Brooklyn divine.
Shortly afterward, and while Dr. T. was in San Francisco, he
received a letter from the editor of the Herald and a marked copy of
the paper, giving the Doctor a very flattering notice. In his letter the
editor said: "I enclose a clipping from the Tribune purporting to be
an interview between yourself and a reporter of that paper; will you
be kind enough to write me whether it is or is not genuine?"
The Doctor looked the clipping carefully over, and as it was
nothing but a blood-curdling account of the merits of Day's Kidney
pad, he had no hesitancy in pronouncing the alleged interview a
fraud. Still he never wrote the editor of the Herald, and he no doubt
still wonders why it is that Dr. Talmage don't come forward and state
the facts, so that the Gentile Tribune may be shown up.
The Doctor says that too much care cannot be used by the editor
who wields the shears not to get his editorials mixed up with patent
medicine advertisements.
 FINE-CUT AS A MEANS OF GRACE.

T
he amateur tobacco chewer many times through lack of
consideration allows himself to be forced into very awkward
and unpleasant positions. As a fair sample of the perils to
which the young and inexperienced masticator of the weed is
subjected, the following may be given:
A few Sabbaths ago a young man who was attending divine
worship up on Piety Avenue, concluded, as the sermon was about
one-half done and didn't seem to get very exciting, that he would
take a chew of tobacco. He wasn't a handsome chewer, and while he
was sliding the weed out of his pocket and getting it behind his
handkerchief and working it into his mouth, he looked as though he
might be robbing a blind woman of her last copper. Then when he
got it into his mouth and tried to look pious and anxious about the
welfare of his never dying soul, the chew in his mouth felt as big as
a Magnolia ham. Being new in the business, the salivary glands were
so surprised that they began to secrete at a remarkable rate. The
young man got alarmed. He wanted to spit. His eyes began to hang
out on his cheek, and still the salivary glands continued to give
down. He thought about spitting in his handkerchief or his hat, but
neither seemed to answer the purpose. He was getting wild. He
thought of swallowing it, but he knew that his stomach wasn't large
enough.
In his madness he resolved that he would let drive down the aisle
when the pastor looked the other way. He waited till the divine
threw his eyes toward heaven and then he shut his eyes and turned
loose. An old gentleman about three pews down the aisle yawned at
that moment and threw his open hand out into the aisle in such a
manner as to catch the contribution without any loss to speak of. He
did not put his hand out for that purpose and did not seem to want
it, but he got it all right.
 He seemed to feel hurt about something. He looked like a man
who has suddenly lost faith in humanity and become soured, as it
were. Some who sat near him said he swore. Anyway, he lost the
thread of the discourse. That part of the sermon he now says is a
blank to him. It is several blanks. He called upon blank to
everlastingly blank such a blankety blank blank, idiotic blank fool as
the young man was.
Meantime the young man has quit the use of tobacco. He did not
know at first whether to swear off or kill himself. The other day he
said: "Only two weeks ago I stood up and said proudly I amateur.
To-day, praise be to redeeming grace, I am not a chewer." (This joke
for the first few days will have to be watered very carefully and
wrapped in a California blanket, for it is not strong at all. However, if
it can be worked through the cold weather it is no slouch of a joke.)
 THE WEATHER AND SOME OTHER
THINGS.

S
ometimes I wish that Wyoming had more vegetation and less
catarrh, more bloom and summer and fragrance and less
Christmas and New Year's through the summer.
I like the clear, bracing air of 7,500 feet above the civilized world,
but I get weary of putting on and taking off my buffalo overcoat for
meals all through dog days. I yearn for a land where a man can take
off his ulster and overshoes while he delivers a Fourth of July
oration, without flying into the face of Providence and dying of
pneumonia.
Perhaps I am unreasonable, but I can't help it. I have my own
peculiar notions, and I am not to blame for them.
As I write these lines I look out across the wide sweep of
brownish gray plains dotted here and there with ranches and defunct
buffalo craniums, and I see shutting down over the sides of the
abrupt mountains, and meeting the foothills, a white mist which
melts into the gray sky. It is a snow storm in the mountains.
I saw this with wonder and admiration for the first two or three
million times. When it became a matter of daily occurrence as a
wonder or curiosity, it was below mediocrity. Last July a snow storm
gathered one afternoon and fell among the foothills and whitened
the whole line to within four or five miles of town, and it certainly
was a peculiar freak of nature, but it convinced me that whatever
enterprises I might launch into here I would not try to raise oranges
and figs until the isothermal line should meet with a change of
heart.
I have just been reading Colonel Downey's poem. It is very good
what there is of it, but somehow we lay aside the Congressional
Record wishing that there had been more of it.
Just as we get interested and carried away with it, having read the
first five or six thousand words, it comes to an abrupt termination.
I have often wished that I could write poetry. It would do me a
heap of good. I would like to write a little book of poems with a blue
cover and beveled edges and an index to it. It would tickle me pretty
near to death.
But I can't seem to do it. When I write a poem and devote a good
deal of study and thought to it, and get it to suit me, the great
seething mass of humanity, regardless of my feelings, get down on
the grass and yell and hoot and kick up the green sward, and whoop
at the idea of calling that poetry. It hurts me and grieves me, and
has a tendency to sour my disposition, so that when a really
deserving poet comes to the front I haven't the good nature and
sweetness of disposition to enter dispassionately upon the subject
and say a kind word where I ought to, but I will say of Colonel
Downey's poem that it certainly has great depth and width and
length, and as you go on, it seems to broaden out and extend
farther on and cover more ground and take in more territory and
branch out and widen and lay hold of great tracts of thought and
open up new fields and fresh pastures and make homestead claims
and enter large desert land tracts and prove up under the timber
culture act and the bounty land act and throw open the Indian
reservation to settlement.
The matter of decorating the Capitol with sacred subjects is one
which would receive the hearty approval of all the people of the
country, and I often wish that the Colonel had alluded to it in his
poem.
I have some curiosity to know what his ideas are on that point.
I, for one, would be glad to see appropriate paintings of scriptural
subjects decorating the walls of our national capitol, and have often
been on the verge of offering to do it at my own expense.
A cheerful painting to adorn the walls back of the Speaker's desk,
would be a study by some great artist, representing Sampson
mashing the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass.
It would be historical and also symbolical; but principally
symbolical.
Then another painting might be executed representing Balaam's
ass delivering a speech on the Indian question. It would take first
rate, and when visitors from abroad made a flying trip to
Washington during the summer, and missed seeing Wade Hampton,
and felt disappointed, they could go and see Balaam's ass, and go
home with their curiosity gratified.
I have seen a very spirited painting somewhere; I think it was at
the Louvre, or the Vatican, or Fort Collins, by either Michael Angelo,
or Raphael, or Eli Perkins, which represented Joseph presenting a
portion of his ulster overcoat to Potiphar's wife, and lighting out for
the Cairo and Palestine 11 o'clock train, with a great deal of
earnestness. This would be a good painting to hang on the walls of
the Capitol, dedicated to Ben Hill and some other Congressional
soiled doves.
Then there are some simpler subjects which might be worked up
and hung in the Congressional nursery to please the children till the
session closed for the day, and their miscellaneous dads came to
carry them home.
I could think of lots of nice subjects for a painter to paint, or a
sculptor to sculp, if I were to give my attention to it# But I haven't
the time.
 THE PARABLE OF THE UNJUST
STEWARD.

N
ow there was a certain rich man in those days, who kept a
large inn on the American plan.
And the hegira from other lands over against Kabzul and
Eder, and Breckinridge and Kinah, and Georgetown and Dimmonah,
and Kedesh and Roaring Forks, and Hador and Ithnan, and the
Gunnison country and Ziph, and Telem and Silver Cliff, Beoloth and
Hadattah, and even beyond Hazar—Gadah and Buena Vista, was
exceedingly simultaneous.
And throughout the country roundabout was there never before
an hegira that seemed to hegira with the same hegira with which
this hegira did hegira.
And behold the inn was overrun day by day with pilgrims who
journeyed thither with shekels and scrip and pieces of silver.
And the inn-keeper said unto himself, "Go to;" and he was very
wroth, insomuch that he tore his beard and swore a large, dark-blue
oath about the size of a man's hand.
For behold the inn-keeper gat not the shekels, and he wist not
why it was.
Now, it was so that in the inn was one Keno-El-Pharo, the
steward, and he stood behind the tablets wherein the pilgrims did
write the names of themselves and their wives and their sons and
their daughters.
And Keno-El-Pharo wore purple and fine linen, and fared
sumptuously every day, and he drank the wines of one Mumm, and
they were extra dry, and so even was Keno-El-Pharo from the rising
of the sun until the going down thereof.
 And behold one day the inn-keeper took a large tumble even unto
himself, and also unto the racket of Keno-El-Pharo the son of Ahaz
Ben Bunko.
And he said unto Keno, "Give an account of thy stewardship that
thou mayest be no longer steward."
And Keno-El-Pharo cried with a loud voice and wept and fell down
and rose up and went unto his place.
And he looked into the mirror, and patted the soap lock on his
brow and he saw that he was fair to look: upon.
But he was exceedingly sorrowful and he said, What shall I do? for
my lord taketh away the stewardship, and verily it was a good thing
to have.
Alas! I know not what to do. I cannot get a position as mining
expert, and to beg I am ashamed. I am resolved what I will do. And
he smiled unto himself, and the breadth of the smile was even six
cubits from one end thereof even unto the other.
So he called unto himself one of his lord's debtors, and he said,
How much owest thou my lord?
And he said, Even for seven days food and lodging at $3.50 per
day, together with my reckoning at the bar, amounting to thirty
pieces of silver of the denomination known as the dollar even of our
dads.
And the steward said unto him, Take thy bill quickly and write
fifteen.
And it was so. And he said unto another, How much owest thou
my lord?
And he answered him and said, fifty pieces of silver.
And the steward said unto him, take thy bill and write twenty-five.
And it was so.
And behold these two guests of the inn were solid with Keno El-
Pharo from that hour.
And when Keno-El-Pharo received the Oriental grand bounce from
the inn-keeper, the guests of the inn, to whom Keno had shown
mercy, procured him a pass over the road, and they whiled away the
hours with Keno-El-Pharo, and he did teach them some pleasant
games; and when the even was come he went his way unto Kansas
City, and they with whom he had abode wot not how it was, for they
were penniless.
And Keno-El-Pharo abode long in the land over against St. Louis,
and he was steward in one of the great inns for many years, and he
wore good clothes day by day and waxed fat, and he rested his
stomach on the counter, and he said to himself, ha! ha!

ODE TO SPRING.
Fantasia for the Bass Drum; Adapted from the German by William
Von Nye.

In the days of laughing spring time,

Comes the mild-eyed sorrel cow,
With bald-headed patches on her,
Poor and lousy, I allow;
And she waddles through your garden
O'er the radish beds, I trow.

Then the red-nosed, wild-eyed orphan,

With his cyclopædiee,
Hies him to the rural districts
With more or less alacrity.
And he showeth up its merits
To the bright eternitee.

How the bumble-bee doth bumble—

Bumbling in the fragrant air,